


Destiny Intervenes

by Navnit



Series: Destiny [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 58,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3308672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Navnit/pseuds/Navnit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony finds an unconscious woman on his landing pad. Darcy rescues a confused stranger in New Mexico. Natsasha fishes an almost drowned Captain Rogers out of the Potomac. Destiny has decided to give them a second chance. Post CA:WS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Woman on the Landing Pad

 

**Destiny Intervenes**

**XKXKXKXKXK**

**The Woman On The Landing Pad**

Tony's eyes opened slowly as he took in his surroundings, he had had a good night's sleep which was a rarity these days; waking up in cold sweat with visions of Pepper falling to her death into a flaming abyss was usually the norm for his night life recently. But Pepper was right beside him sleeping peacefully and for once  _not_  the first to wake up.

He had secured down time for both of them; almost a months worth, both of them were recovering from serious medical procedures and needed the rest. The stabilizing of the Extremis virus in his girlfriends blood hadn't taken that long, he had already been working on the formula before Killian decided to attempt to wreck his life.

Tony himself had just had surgery to remove the rest of the shrapnel attempting to pierce his heart, he still got a shock every time he was shirtless in front of a mirror and didn't have a blue nightlight shining in his eyes, instead there was just a thin four inch scar at the center of his chest were the arc reactor had plugged in, to be honest while there was still residual phantom pains from the surgery, he had never felt lighter.

Tony slowly and carefully extracted himself from Peppers clutching embrace and slid of his bed to pad out into the bathroom, after taking care of his body's needs he took a moment to examine his chest and to make sure once again that he was really fixed and that this wasn't just an extremely cruel dream.

Tony sighed as he thought about the decisions he had made, Pepper's supposed death at the hands of Killian, his inability to save her and the piercing pain in his chest at the thought of going on without her made him make some seriously life changing decisions. His experience in Afghanistan at the hands of the Ten Rings had forced him to make his first one in which he had taken up arms against these terrorist organizations but facing the prospect of life without Pepper had him making another, he had blown up all of his suits as a present for her but hadn't let her into his revelation that he had had until later on at which point his Pepper had sat him down and talked him into reconsidering hanging up the gloves, both literally and figuratively. She had patiently explained to him that if this is what he really wanted to do that she would support him wholeheartedly but if he was doing this with a sense of guilt at her getting hurt and almost dying then she wasn't going to have it.

She told him about all the good he had done as Ironman, about all the good he could still do. The world still needs Ironman, she had said, and she knew that as long as it needed him, he would want to help.

Tony had then broken down and confessed to her that he was truly terrified that one day all of this, all of  _Tony Stark_  and  _Ironman_  would finally manage to drive her away, that he would lose her because he was trying to make the world better. And he told her there and then that he could not and refused to live without her light in his life.

She had then placed her hand on his cheek and promised solemnly that as long as he loved her, she would be right here for however long he wanted, she had known what she was getting into from the start and while throughout the years as his PA and later as his girlfriend she had faced death, pain, anger, immense sadness, and even hate towards those who harmed them, in all that time she had never once regretted letting him in. She loved him and would always do, so long as he would have her.

Then she had placed her hands in his and asked him to fix her.

Tony had immediately started work on stabilizing the Extremis and then ordered Jarvis to begin synthesis on his new suit, he was now starting from scratch and he was determined to leave the past where it belonged.

He had Pepper and she was going to be fine and he was never going to let her get hurt again.

Tony was jolted out of his thoughts by JARVIS.

_'Sir, there is a woman outside the penthouse suite.'_

JARVIS' voice was soft in the bathroom not wanting to wake the sleeping Ms Potts. Tony frowned, they were off work, who was bothering them now.

"Tell them to go away, J. We're on break." he turned to go back to Pepper but the AI spoke again.

_'I'm sorry I was unclear sir, the woman is on the landing pad sir, and she is unconscious.'_

Tony took that in for a moment and then sighed shaking his head, he knew it was too good to be true; a break from work? Time alone with Pepper unhindered by her meetings and trips to foreign countries? A quiet recuperation? There _had_ to be a catch.

Tony walked slowly out of his bedroom. "JARVIS _why_ is there a woman lying unconscious on my landing pad?" he asked conversationally as he looked out at said woman through the glass wall facing the roof.

He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a gauntlet for his right hand, his suit wasn't completely rendered but some parts were ready and he wasn't stupid enough to run out unarmed to rescue a damsel in distress, no he had had too many experiences with vengeful women to not really trust them not to kill him if his back was turned.

_'I'm afraid I do not have the answer to that question, sir.'_

Tony rolled his eyes. "Great," the AI could really be unhelpful if he wanted to be.

"JARVIS, apprise Ms Potts of the situation and tell her to stand back until I give the all clear."

_'Yes, sir.'_

"And get the guest room ready," he added because despite his reservations he knew that this woman was not going to be a threat, his world didn't work that way.

Tony still walked cautiously up to the prone figure; she was wearing what looked to be a uniform of some sort, Khaki green fitted jacket and pencil skirt, a bit on the conservative side and when he turned her limp figure over to look at her face he saw an inner shirt and tie under her buttoned up jacket.

The lapels of her jacket were pinned with emblems bearing an insignia he faintly recognized and her shoulder length hair was surrounding her face in an elegant arrangement though some of it had pulled loose and become unkempt. But Tony ignored all of this because the moment he laid eyes on her face he instantly recognized her.

"Aunt Peg?" he gasped in wonder as he looked down at one, much younger then he ever remembered her being, Peggy Carter.

**XKXKXKXKXK**


	2. The Soldier in the Sand

 

 

**The Soldier in the Sand**

It was almost twilight. Darcy Lewis trudged back up the street to the research facility SHIELD had provided them, they were back in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico in the same town in which a year ago she had witnessed a god and huge metallic demon from hell duke it out decimating each other and every building that was standing.

Jane had been continuing her attempt at finding a way to access the Bifrost and she had been very close to cracking it until SHIELD had ordered them to pack up and move, once again, but this time it was to another research facility. They had told them the bare minimum; the thing that Selvig was working on had been stolen and he had been brain washed by a vengeful Norse God of Mischief and because of Thor's association with Jane, Loki could come after them so for safety reasons of they had been whisked to Tromsø of all places, not that Jane hadn't been completely in love with their research labs, but they had been so disconnected, heck she wasn't even able to check her Facebook status and Darcy  _lived_  on Facebook.

Needless to say it had been harrowing on  _her_  let alone how it had been for  _Jane_ ; her only parental figure had been brainwashed and the man ,scratch that  **God,**  she was in love with; having not had any contact with her since disappearing into the swirly portal thingy, had arrived back on earth, defended it  _again_ , saved it from his temper tantrum throwing brother  _again_ , and left without so much as a message to her  _again_. Needless to say she was not a bundle of joy to be around especially when her blood sugar was low, hence the midday Pop Tart run.

She was almost at their snazzy new SHIELD funded research lab when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. The research facility was located at the very edge of the podunk town they were situated in, behind it was a huge expanse of desert stretching as far as her bright blue eyes could see, but there just at the end of her visage, at the very horizon she thought she could make out some thing, a speck, she couldn't be sure until...

 

**XKXKXKXKXK**

 

"JANE!" Darcy yelled making the astrophysicist drop her fifteenth cup of coffee in fright. "JANE! GET OUT HERE, JANE!" Normally she would have ignored her intern slash assistant and kept focusing on her work, the only thing that kept her mind off of  _things_..., but the absolute urgency of her voice,  _aside_  from the volume, made Jane get up and take a look.

When she got outside the lab, into the bright midday sunlight of New Mexico she caught Darcy staring dumbfounded at something behind the lab off into the distance.

"Darcy what-?" she asked but Darcy snapped out of what ever haze she was in a grabbed her arm and yanked her forwards to stand next to her. "Hey-" she protested half-heartedly.

Darcy just spoke in a strangled excited whisper pointing at the horizon. "Tell me that that's not a mirage Jane," she demanded her urgently. "Tell me I'm not seeing that because of the heat and my overactive imagination."

Jane squinted out at the vast expanse of sand for a moment and then her eyes widened almost comically. "Ohmygod."

Darcy didn't look at her, just sighed in relief that she wasn't hallucinating. "It's real right? There's someone there right?" she asked her voice rising excitedly.

"Yes," gasped Jane bouncing on her feet Darcys excitement infectious. She risked a careful glance to her best friend. "Do you think...?" she refused to say his name out loud lest she jinx it.

Darcy shrugged. "Maybe, but whether it's him or not it's still someone right? Someone whose probably been walking for miles? Someone who needs our help?"

Darcy could see Jane nodding along with all of her suggestions enthusiastically but she could also see the hope shining in her eyes; she really thought it was Muscles and she knew that Jane would be even crushed then before if it turned out not to be the Hotness Who Shall Not Be Named.

"Now Jane stop that," she reprimanded sternly. "We don't know who that is but I really don't think it's him, I mean why didn't he just fly here?" she demanded her. "Well he might have lost his Mew Mew again but I don't think so, he loved Mew Mew and to lost it again? Yeah I don't think so." she continued. "So we are going to take the van out and we're going to help the poor bastard out there but we are agreeing that he is not God of Disappointment okay?" She finished with her hands on her hips looking expectancy at her friend slash boss.

Jane just nodded. "Okay. Come on, let's go," she she ran off inside. "I'll get the keys."

Darcy ran after her depositing the bag of pop tarts on a table and looking at a still excitable Jane who was hunting for the keys.

"You didn't hear one word I said did you?" she accused the astrophysicist.

"No," agreed Jane readily. "Found it," she exclaimed holding the keys up like it was the key to the dead man's chest or something. "Come on let's go rescue the handsome stranger - I mean - uh - lost stranger out in the desert." She beat a hasty retreat to the van as Darcy narrowed her eyes at her.

"I swear Jane I'm not cleaning up after you when you wake up blubbering in the middle of the night and throw half eaten pop tarts every where because you miss your alien boyfriend," she declared as she got into the passenger seat and buckled up. "Not again, I promise you."

"Uh huh," Jane assured as she she started the engine and sped off out into the desert.

But despite Darcys insistence she knew that if Jane did go on a midnight pop tart binge she would clean after her friend as many times as necessary because while Darcy didn't have a lot of people to love, the people she did love got her utmost loyalty and Jane was the most loved out of all her loved ones, yes even her recovered iPod could not compare.

So they went; down the tumbling valley, into the heart of the desert. It seemed to be out of a script of The Mummy or something but this time the supernatural being they were hoping to find was not some centuries dead Pharaohs Priest.

Within ten minutes their target was in sight thanks to Jane's crazy driving and soon they were stopping next to him, it was obvious even before they had stopped that they both knew it wasn't the God of Thunder that was walking towards civilisation. Oh the guy looked ripped sure with his khaki shirt wrapped around his head his abs on display but his hair was short almost military crop and as soon as he saw the van he stopped walking and sort of fell on his knees and slowly onto his face and if Darcy knew one thing about Muscles its that he didn't fall on his face, not unless hit by Jane's van.

Darcy tried to get to him in time to catch him even jumping out before the van had completely stopped but in the end she approached the man as he was lying spread eagle on the ground face down, still breathing but clearly exhausted.

Darcy knelt next to him on the ground and looked at him for a moment afraid to touch. Jane came over to her side and looked down at the man curious and obviously disappointed.

"Well," she said. "It's not him." She stated the obvious but seemed to be taking it really well, maybe what Darcy had said had gotten into her head some.

She turned her attention back to the fallen soldier. He _was_ a soldier by the looks of his clothing, although she doubted there was any sort of military posted this side of New Mexico, maybe he was Air Force? She shrugged to herself.

Finally having had enough of her hesitation she reached out and turned him over onto his back to look at his face. He was beautiful; in a word, he was handsome with bright blue eyes, right now glazed over, short cropped hair that told of one time being styled to make the ladies swoon a chiseled face and a ripped body that could've made ol' Muscles jealous.

His lips though we're obviously dry, he was dehydrated and his breathing was shallow.

Jane nodded. "I'll get some water," and she rushed back to the van while Darcy tried to get his attention.

When he continued to look straight ahead she decided to examine him again. The shirt he had wrapped around his face had fallen down to cover his left arm and she was just about to lift it off of him when she caught a glint of silver at his neck.

"Dog tags," she said to herself. Identification. Yay. And she reached for them lifting it off his chest to examine the engraving.

"Sergeant James B. Barnes?" she read. "Howling Commando?"

All the Captain America comic books she had nicked from her brothers collection flashed before her eyes and she took as deep breath. Howling Commandos. James Barnes. Captain America's best friend. And as she processed this one name came to her mind; the affectionate and familiar name that the comic Cap had called his friend and she couldn't help but blurt it out in surprised disbelief.

"Bucky?" she asked in astonishment and gasped as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes focused on her.

 

**XKXKXKXKXK**


	3. The Hero in the Potomac

Triskelion headquarters of SHIELD was basically in ruins, the fall of three Helicarriers on and around it had completely rendered it useless, fortunately the massive file dump of all of SHIELD and HYDRA secrets, courtesy of the Black Widow, on the Internet had rendered SHIELD itself useless.

Triskelion had been for all intents and purposes declared abandoned but there were a few former agents still moving around the complex, it was their last ditch effort to secure some of the secrets that had been, amazingly, not archived digitally. They were operating under orders of Former Deputy Director Hill to secure all loose data and report to her and then they were to go their own way until SHIELD managed to find their footing again.

Soon though they noticed the main gate to the facility open granting access to a black clad figure in a motorcycle. The driver stopped just in front of the lobby and dismounted smoothly removing the helmet to reveal long red curls and a pale white face with strikingly green eyes and blood red lips. One of the Agents immediately descended the stairs to greet the formidable Avenger known as Black Widow.

"Agent Romanoff? This is unexpected," he said earning a raised eyebrow in answer he gulped but powered through. "we were just finishing up."

Romanoff nodded once. "Hill sent me to wrap this up, the press has been alerted to your presence here, their ETA is twenty minutes, gather all relevant intel and clear out before they arrive."

The Agent nodded nervously and started back up the stairs to inform his team of the development. Romanoff started to follow but was stopped short as she heard the sound of a long drawn out scream, her ears super sensitive because of the Red Room enhancements immediately focused on the sound and she turned to the bridge she had just crossed on her motorcycle. She glanced up and was surprised to see a human shaped red blue blur falling from the sky, she raced outside with the Agent behind her alerted to her alarm and they watched as the screaming man fell straight into the Potomac.

Natasha turned to the Agent and said. "Get a rescue chopper here right now," she ordered and without waiting to see him nod she ran for the bridge railing and vaulted over coiling her body midair into a graceful dive and plunged into the icy cold morning water of the Potomac.

She resurfaced gasping for air but didn't hesitate in kicking her legs and swimming in the direction she had determined the man had fallen, her enhanced physiology allowed her to cover ground quickly ignoring the stabbing pains of the cold water and reach the place where she could see a speck of bright blue and red, thank god for his choice in bright apparel.

She dived under and clasped her hands around his middle kicking of the ground making slow but steady progress towards the surface, if she were a normal female she would have no chance of pulling what was obviously at least a 200 pound man up to the surface of the Potomac, but a normal female Natasha Romanoff was not and eventually they broke the surface of the water Natasha gasping for breath to find a SHIELD chopper hovering over them.

The Agent she had ordered to get help was hanging out the side of the helicopter, he tossed her a rope with a harness which she efficiently fastened around her unconscious companion and held on to him giving the Agent the go ahead to lift them up.

The pilot went up and they were soon deposited back on the bridge only now she was soaking wet. The exertion had taken a lot out of her and she was unable to hold her charge up any longer, she slowly lowered him down on the tarmac and flopped down on the ground beside him looking up at the sky trying to figure out where in the hell he had fallen from and trying to catch her breath.

The chopper had landed only yards away from her and as it powered down she heard the hurried footsteps of the Agent approach. Natasha sat up and scrutinized him. He was looking at her expectantly wringing his hands in anticipation; it was obvious that this was not what he expected to be doing on his last day as a SHIELD Agent.

"Get me Hill," she ordered swiftly. "And lock this facility down as much as it is able. We're not leaving as quickly as we thought." All this she said as fast as she could before turning to the unconscious man beside her and starting CPR not looking to see of her orders were being followed.

After a couple of puffs of air to his lungs and a few compression's to his chest the guy took a deep shuddering breath and expelled a mouth full, or lungful, of water and started shaking looking around him in utter confusion.

"Agent Romanoff?" said a timid voice behind her. She glared back and saw the Agent offering her a cell phone. "Agent Hill, ma'am." She snatched the phone from him with a cursory 'Don't call me ma'am,  _ever_ ' and put it to her ear.

"Hill?"

"Romanoff," came the reply from the ever eloquent Agent Hill.

"You have any idea where Rogers is?"

"Captain Rogers is currently on a  _personal_  mission looking to locate AWOL war hero and  _unwilling_  HYDRA operative Sergeant James Barnes aka The Winter Soldier."

Natasha rolled her eyes at Hill's formality.

"You got eyes on him?"

"Uh, Yeah I'm looking at his location right now on one of Starks holoscreens. He's in New York apparently. Why?" Finally Hill got curious enough to pry.''

"If he's in New York," Natasha sighed exasperated. "Then why did he suddenly fall out of the sky and into the Potomac at Triskelion?"

"What?!" She heard Maria yell out, Natasha smirked anything that got Hill to break her cool was alright in the books for her.

"You heard me," she replied. "if Rogers is in New York then why am I looking down at Captain America here in DC." And sure enough, the man that she had just fished out of the Potomac, just breathed new life into, was none other than Steve Rogers; the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, Captain America.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey guys, I wanted to point out to those who were taking notes, that I left out the events of Thor: The Dark World. This was intentional on my part, the events of Winter Soldier and Ironman 3 has already taken place but I will mostly try to incorporate Thor 2 into this story, Destiny Intervenes is now officially AU sorry if anybody got confused by that but I couldn't incorporate post Thor 2 in my story. Anyways thanks for all the wonderful reviews, I may not reply to them but I read and appreciate each and everyone of you alls feedback.


	4. The Billionaires Aunt Peg

When Tony gave the all clear Pepper opened the door and ran up the ramp to where her boyfriend was leaning over a beautiful, unconscious brunette wearing if she was not mistaken, and she rarely was, a 1940s uniform issued to female SSR agents.

She was confused as the Strategic Scientific Reserve had been disbanded soon after the loss of Captain America, after his battle with Red Skull, the only person wearing the uniform had shed it off to take part in creating a new organisation with a new uniform and a new badge that read Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement And Logistics Division more commonly known as SHIELD.

Peppers hyper observant brain took in and cataloged all these important factors in the seconds it took for her to look the woman up and down, she even cataloged the fact that this woman bore a striking resemblance to that female founder of SHIELD that she had been thinking of.

She squeezed Tony's shoulder lightly. "Tony?" she asked expectantly waiting for an answer.

"It's Aunt Peg, Pepper," he said still staring disbelievingly at the woman before him. "It's Peggy Carter."

Peppers rational brain warred with the brain that had witnessed a  _god_ , a  _giant green rage monster_ and a man almost a  _century_ old defeat another _god_ and  _aliens_  from outer space. Her rational mind still won and she gently laid a hand on Tony's cheek.

"Tony, Margaret Carter is in a nursing home-"

"Dealing with Alzheimer's and soon might not be with us? I know that," he said shortly. "But Pep I'm telling you this is Aunt Peg, I remember her wearing this same uniform one time at Halloween while I had been dressed up as Captain America by my dad. She had secretly brought another costume for me knowing how much I hated Dad comparing me to Cap so when she took me trick or treating I was dressed as The Tin Man and she pretended to be Dorothy, it was actually what contributed to inspire me to make the Mark I."

"Maybe she's a relative?"

Tony shook his head. "No I can feel that it's her, Pepper," and Pepper was taken aback at the emotion that she saw in his eyes. "She was the only light in the darkness of my childhood aside from my work. Our festive celebrations were less about family get together's and more about organizing the next hunt for Captain America. But Peggy was different, yes I assume the men shunt her to go play with the kid while they made the plans but she  _did_  play with me, she was really torn up about losing Cap you know and she found solace in entertaining me just like I found solace in her, I'm not ashamed to say I developed quite a crush on her. I even told her so once."

Pepper smiled scraping her nails on his scalp as she ran her fingers through his hair. "Of course you did," she responded amused.

Tony effortlessly slid his hands underneath 'Aunt Pegs' legs and shoulders and lifted her up, Pepper leading the way and opening the door to allow Tony to slowly settle her down on to the couch facing the city outside the window.

Tony knelt down beside Peggy and Pepper hovered. "Does she need medical attention?"

"JARVIS?" Tony merely asked of the ever-present AI.

_'Sir, to quail Miss Potts lingering doubts I have taken the liberty to run her through facial recognition and it appears that Mr Stark is correct; there was 99.99% match which leads me to assume that the stranger is, or is successfully impersonating, Agent Margaret Carter formally of the SSR and founder of SHIELD.'_

Pepper frowned at Tony's smug look. "Thank you JARVIS," she said to the AI fondly.

_'You're most welcome Miss Potts, as always. As to Sirs unasked question Miss Carter doesn't have any evidence of physical trauma on her person and my initial diagnostics only indicate a loss of consciousness.'_

Tony sighed relieved. "Well that's that I guess," he said rubbing his still sleepy eyes.

_'Might I suggest Sir, that you take a DNA sample from the supposed Miss Carter to be sure that she is who you suspect. I will be able to run the sample in the Labs."_

Tony nodded. "Yeah all right, but call Banner up here, I don't think I'm qualified to stick someone with a needle."

_'As you wish sir. '_

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Peggy felt a little pin prick of a needle piercing her skin just inside her elbow and forced herself awake, she looked up at a man with slightly graying hair and glasses who seemed to concentrating on something very intently and hadn't realized her state of awareness.

She looked to her right and saw another man with a goatee and perfectly styled hair kneeling next to the couch she was lying on with on of her hands in his. 'Howard?' she thought idly but she was not sure. The red headed woman standing next to the Howard clone was looking right at her, her fingers had frozen over the kneeling man's hair which she had been combing through, it was obvious that she had been caught by surprise at Peggy's awareness. Before she could say anything though the slight pain at her elbow reminded her of why she had woken up and she glanced down at her arm to see a needle sticking out of it the syringe half full of blood and her reflexes kicked in.

Peggy ripped her self out of the Howard lookalikes grip and scooted her self back an into the furthest arm of the couch pulling her legs in and pulling out her back up side arm out of her leg holster. She aimed the weapon at them all watching their arms lift up warily in surrender.

"W-Who are you p-people?" her throat was dry. "What are you doing?" she looked at the still kneeling man who looked so much like.. "Howard? What are you...?"

"Aunt Peg calm down," Howard's copy said. "We're not trying to hurt you and I'm not Howard, Peg, I'm his son Tony."

"Tony? But Howard and Maria aren't even marri... " she trailed off looking thoughtfully to her arm. "Why were you drawing blood if you didn't want to harm me? Who do you work for? Is it HYDRA? Because I am warning you I am a very important Agent of the SSR and I'm sure the Commandos are even now searching for me. You don't want to get on the bad side of Captain America do you? Seeing as the last time he destroyed your entire base of operations." She knew it was a risky lie but most of the world still did not know of Cap's dissapearance and maybe she could use the fact to her advantage.

Howards 'son' looked affronted. "HYDRA? Exactly what about us screams Psychotic German Nazi organization?"

"Miss Carter, or do you prefer Agent?" said tthe red head bravely. "Please. My name is Pepper Potts and I assure you that we are not affiliated with any HYDRA organization." She slowly approached, Peggy had her gun fully trained on the woman but she didn't pull the trigger. "Now why don't you give me that gun and we can talk this through, we mean you no harm." And she watched as if from third person as she allowed this Pepper? To lift the gun out of her hand and set it aside not training it on her as she was expecting.

Peggy let out a sigh of defeat. "Well I guess that's that then." She looked to the guy who'd been extracting her blood. "So what's her ability then," she asked indicating Pepper. "she one of those gifted people like James Howlett?" When no one commented she went on. "Oh come on she just completely calmed me down and made me give up my weapon leaving me entirely defenseless. What  _are_  you?" she asked again looking at Pepper. "An empath or something."

Pepper just smiled and shook her head. "I doubt you are ever totally defenseless if even half the stories about you are true."

"And Peppers not a mutant or anything," said Tony standing up beside her. "What you just experienced Aunt Peg; is literally, and it is literal this time Bruce, my Peppers - heh -  _disarming_  personality," he said with a completely straight face and smirked as the other two groaned at his pun. "She's just awesome like that." He declared and planted a kiss on the red heads cheek causing her to blush.

Peggy watched all this interaction with an interested and cautious eye, she was still looking for an escape route but realized that she was looking out at a huge city full of skyscrapers and she appeared to be sitting inside one their penthouses so apparently the only way out was down and did not feel like testing her non existent avion capabilities at this time.

Finally Tony turned to her and said. "So Aunt Peg my butler found you unconscious on the roof of my tower, any idea how you got there?"

Peggy closed her eyes for a moment and it all came rushing back; the ongoing search for Steve, Howard pushing them to the brink of exhaustion, Steve's promise to meet them for their dance; she had showed up two weeks after his crash at the pub and waited all through the night until closing, tears slowly falling until she had no more left to cry.

And then she had made one of the most stupidest decisions of her life, her alcohol ridden brain wrought with grief over the loss of Steve she had climbed out of the window of the hotel room into the balcony and looked down at the ground twelve stories below, she had closed her eyes and let go of the railing and then she had woken up amazingly sober and alive on the couch of, if he was to be believed, Howard Starks son.

She didn't tell them all that though, she didn't trust them so she stayed purposefully vague. "Steve was gone, we searched for him all over but couldn't find him," she looked straight into Tony's eyes and she had a hard time not admitting that the compassion in them reminded her so much of the flirting, caring and fun loving scientist that she had once known. If there was one thing could admit it was that if Howard Stark ever had a son he would look exactly like Tony did. "All I remember really," she continued. "Is falling and then waking up here." She looked around the room desolately.

Tony frowned in concern. "Falling? Were you pushed." But all Peggy did was shrug, but then Tony brightened. "Well we've got one good news for you, we actually found old Capsicle in the Arctic recently and he's all thawed out and back to  Spangley and Planny and Captain Americany again."

Only one thing registered to Peggy in Tony's little diatribe there. "You found Steve?" she asked standing up and swaying on the spot.

Tony rushed to help her. "Whoa whoa, Aunt Peg. You gotta take it easy, you were just unconscious remember?"  
Peggy shook her head adamantly while clutching Tony's arm tightly trying to regain her balance. "No, if you found Steve you need to take me to him, I'll tell you anything you want to know, if he's alive..." she gasped her eyes hollow with grief. "I'll do anything to see him again please." She watched as they understood that she still thought they worked for HYDRA.

And then Pepper was there again taking Peggys other hand and with soft words and explanations calmed her down enough to take her seat again. Peggy still had a hard time believing that the other woman didn't possess some superhuman ability.

Tony knelt down next to her looking earnestly up at her in adoration. "Aunt Peg, we'll get Steve here, he can meet you no problem but you have to know that what ever you remember?" he said his tone questioning. "Happened over seventy years ago, this is the year 2014 and a lot has changed."

The shock of that revelation took a while to register but she shook it off. "Prove it." she insisted. Pepper had worked her magic enough to make Peggy pick up her usual persona of aloof ice queen SSR Agent and she was more suspicious then ever.

"Umm okay," Tony said looking at Pepper who shrugged as did Bruce. "JARVIS?," he said looking up. "Any ideas?" have asked the ceiling hopefully making Peggy think he had completely lost it until someone answered back.

_"Of course sir,"_  it said to Tony and then addressed her.

_"Agent Carter a lot has happened since the last time you were conscious in this world,"_ a see through picture appeared in front of her out of nowhere, Peggy had absolutely no idea where it was being projected from and there was no visible screen for the projection to take place on, it was just there sort of like magic.  
 _"World War II lasted two more years after the Captain crashed his plane with the Tesseract onboard."_ she watched with tears in her eyes a hand on her mouth as a large Japanese city was bombed out of existence by some devastating weapon. She soon realized what that weapon was; Howard had kept a side project during the war in which he would consult with someone named Oppenheimer and Fermi and other Scientists and Army Generals about the creation of a bomb that would wipe out an entire city. It was supposed to be as a last resort.

"They did it," she said softly as tears said down her cheeks. "They actually did it."

_"The nuclear bombings of Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki decided the signing of surrender of Japanese troops, the casualties were astronomical, we still feel the effects of the actions our country took to protect its people."_ Peggy just shook her head as she read the total losses suffered.

_"After that there was another notable war in which our country took part in an that was the Vietnam War, North Vietnam lead by communist leaders sought to seize control of the country with South Vietnam aided by us trying to make sure that the country didn't fall into communists hands. In the end it was a pointless war fought for pointless reasons and the US chose to withdraw from Vietnam but not before 58,220 US citizens had died for nothing."_ Peggy was surprised to detect a hint of bitterness in the Voice from the Ceilings voice, she herself was just staring in disbelief at the atrocities that man kind continued to inflict upon each other.

JARVIS took Peggy through a crash course in American History since World War II and her significant role in it. "I helped found Shield?" He took her through the various political party changes and presidential elections, he showed her the leaps and bounds that technology had made during the last seventy years and the major role that Stark Industries and Tony Stark himself had played in it.

After about an hour of explanations finally the voice shut off, she was sure that there was a lot she still didn't know but after all that the one thing she did know was that these people she was with might just be telling the truth and maybe these were people she might be able to trust.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Tony was pacing back and forth holding his phone to his ear and muttering to himself. Sometime during Peggys history lesson the man who had taken her blood, Bruce?, had left to get started on verifying her DNA. Finally after his twelfth pass Pepper stepped in and stopped him looking him straight in the eye.

"What are you doing Tony?" she asked as Peggy finished her brief introduction to the new century through JARVIS and turned to look at them both.

"I'm trying to get a hold of Spangles but he just isn't picking up," he replied exasperated. "I knew trusting him with a Starkphone was expecting too much from him, I should had given him one of those phones built for old people then maybe Capsicle could actually be bothered to pick up."

"You want to talk to Steve?" she reaffirmed.

Tony nodded. "Didn't I just say that?" he asked rhetorically. Pepper chose not to comment, when Tony got nervous he got snarky. She just rolled her eyes at him.

"Well you do realize that his commanding officer does actually work for us as head of security right," she asked him. "I bet Maria could get us in contact with his comms."

Tonys eyes widened in surprise. "Hill works for us? I honestly did not know that."

Pepper nodded. She had surmised as much. "Well if you'd pay attention to what I have to say about the running of _your_ company then you would know that after SHIELD's downfall she came to apply for a job with us."

Tony blinked at that. "Huh," he said. "So do you think? She still keeps tabs on our ol' American Boy Scout?"

Pepper nodded. "I know she does. SHIELD isn't permanently down, as you well know Tony, she wanted assurances that she would be able to help rebuild the organization while spending her down time shaping up Stark Industries Security."

"Stark Industries Security is JARVIS and he does not need 'shaping up'," replied Tony pointedly but eventually sighed. " _Fine_ if Hill can get a hold of Cap then tell him to pick up his damn phone, I didn't give it to him for appearance sake it has a purpose."

Pepper merely rolls her eyes at him again and moves to the next room to make the call.

In the meanwhile Peggy had gathered a few things in relation to Tony and Peppers interaction. Pepper Potts seems to bring new meaning to the phrase 'Behind every successful man...' because she seemed to be a force of nature when handling Stark Industries business and when handling Stark as well.

The second thing she noticed was that despite his playboy like behavior and debonair appearance, so similar to his father's, and despite Peppers nonchalant countenance, they both seemed completely devoted to each other; the subtle touches, the lingering glances, the faces lighting up at seeing each other, the constant need to be close to each other.

If she ever saw a couple more in love with each other then she couldn't remember, surprisingly it was the lack of any public displays of affection that showed exactly how much they cared about each other. As an SSR Agent she had become fairly adept at reading peoples body and facial expressions and their unconscious gestures spoke way more than any grand gestures of love could ever reveal. Theirs was a quiet and enduring love and Peggy was enjoying being in the presence of such commitment.

The most important thing that Peggy got from their interaction was that they were trying to contact Steve, they were trying to get Steve to come here and meet her and she was suddenly all of a thither.

Peggy tried to scold herself that she was better than this that she was above such teenage school girl antics but then her subconscious decided to remind her of the time when she had shot at Steve for kissing another girl despite him not being at fault. What ever she was, Agent Carter was not above petty and childish antics when it came to the Captain and now it had been more than two years since he had last actually seen her.

Before he had crashed into that godforsaken ocean she had been pretty sure of his feelings for her and hers for him and while having grieved for him her feelings had not changed much, as she had discovered upon learning of his survival. But _he_  had had two plus years to get over her or find someone else, she probably wasn't even alive now as far as he knew so he would've had to mourn and eventually move on.

What would happen when they finally did meet? Would he be happy to see her? Striken? Sad? Resentful? All these thoughts swirling around in her head made her almost nauseous and she tried to control her breathing but failed miserably as Tony again knelt down next to her.

"Aunt Peg?"

Peggy couldn't help but smile at him, it should have been disconcerting; the man looked closer to being her elder brothers age and yet he called her Aunt, it was endearing. She managed to control her minor panic attack and focus on the man in front of her.

"Why Aunt?" she asked fidgeting a little but not taking her eyes of him.

Tony shrugged. "It's what I've always called you," he said nonchalantly. "You were the only adult I knew who I respected without being told to." Her eyes widened at his admission. "I know you don't know me and that I wasn't even born when you were whisked away from your present and into mine but I grew up with you being a constant fixture in my life."

Tony broke eye contact and looked away as if ashamed of his admissions but his voice carried on even as Peggy felt her heart melting. "Truth is Aunt Peg; you were more of a constant in my life than even my own parents were. True you were mostly over at Stark Mansion to indulge dad in his latest scheme to find Captain America,  _his greatest achievement_ , but you always took out time to visit with  _me_."

Tony smiled at a memory even now not looking into her eyes. "You even took me trick or treating once and gave me another costume to wear when I didn't like the one my dad chose."

Peggy was still astonished at the fact that one of her closest friends, Howard Stark, considered his input in Project Rebirth to be his greatest achievement as opposed to him being able to sire such an admirable son, and had thought Howard better than that, but then again she hadn't ever thought _herself_ to be suicidal, she guessed that losing Steve affected them more than they had realized. Amazingly she already was feeling a connection towards Tony, something that should be there but isn't right now. She shook off her thoughts and looked at Tony.

"What costume did Howard make you where?" She had a feeling she already knew though. And sure enough...

"What else?" Tony snorted his tone as far from amused as he could make it. "I was dressed as the 'Star Spangled Man with the Plan' Vibranium shield and all, but you had hidden a Tin Man and Dorothy costume from him and when we went out you help me switch and we had one of the most enjoyable Halloweens of my life." Tony smirked a little at the memory. "It's a bit ironic I guess..."

But before she could ask what the irony was Pepper returned talking into a small rectangular device. "Yes, I know Maria. Yes I'm fully aware that he is in the field but this is important." Pepper sighed and her gaze suddenly hardened and Peggy caught a glimpse of a woman in Pepper who definitely knew how much power she held in her seemingly dainty hands; Peggy recognized the look because she saw it more often than not in the mirror daily.

"Miss Hill I know we give you a lot of leeway in acknowledgment of your previous affiliation with a organization we sympathized with but I do hope I do not need to remind you that I am the CEO of the company you currently work for. Now if you have a means to put me through to Captain Rogers then I want you to put me through and I do hope you will not debate with me on this any more, I believe my orders are clear."

Peggy glanced down at Tony to gauge his reaction to the verbal dressing down of one of his employees and frowned to see a hint of approval, and was that _arousal_ , in his his eyes.

Pepper though sighed as the line was clearly put through. "Steve. Thank God, we've been trying to reach you for ages." She looked at Tony and frowned. "Oh he didn't did he? Well I'll be having a talk with him later and what did I say about calling me ma'am? Exactly."

Peggy couldn't help smile as she remembered Steve's earnest mannerisms as the gentleman in him used to shine through and flatter her Briton heart.

Pepper though looked to Tony and after a curt nod spoke to Steve again. "Steve I know you must be busy but there is someone here who wants to speak to you. Oh, I think you'll remember her very fondly."

And Peggy watched in horror as the flat device Pepper was talking was offered to her to speak into. And as Peggy looked down at the piece of plastic a familiar voice floated up to her and pierced her heart almost causing it to stop. "Hello? Hello? Who's there?" Called the unmistakable voice of Steve Rogers.

**XKXKXKXKXK**


	5. The Intern and the Electrocuter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously: 
> 
> All the Captain America comic books she had nicked from her brothers collection flashed before her eyes and she took as deep breath. Howling Commandos. James Barnes. Captain America's best friend. And as she processed this one name came to her mind; the affectionate and familiar name that the comic Cap had called his friend and she couldn't help but blurt it out in surprised disbelief.
> 
> "Bucky?" she asked in astonishment and gasped as Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes focused on her.

Jane came around the van with a water bottle in hand to see Darcy dumbstruck and staring at the fallen soldiers dog tags.

"Darcy what...?" she asked hesitantly and when her friend/assistant/intern looked up from her stupor she gave a hesitant smile and showed her that water bottle. "I got the water."

Darcy shook herself awake and nodded at her grabbing the bottle and slowly tipping the water into his mouth whispering soothing words as she made him drink.

As far as Jane could actually see the man was completely out of it; who knows how long he had been traveling in the hot desert dehydrated, he looked to be delirious which was not surprising considering the heat and lack of water, his eyes were glassy and he didn't seem to be able to focus on either one of them.

Jane eventually took to observing her interns interactions with the guy. It was clear to anyone who knew them to understand that while Jane was the elder it was Darcy who was more street wise and more social, she knew what to do and how to talk with people. It was no surprise that when it came time to teach Thor about interacting with humans they had all looked to Darcy because neither Jane nor Erik even remotely knew that proper way to interact with a human who wasn't a scientist, a boss or a teacher.

However it still surprised her to see the tenderness and care with which she attended the exhausted man. That surprise turned to worry as his eyes slowly rolled to the back of his head and he lost consciousness.

"What's wrong?" she asked Darcy frantically, she had half a mind to check the bottle for poison, maybe she absent-mindedly packed some other form of clear liquid from the lab into her backpack mistaking it for water. The thought made her freeze; her lab ,while not a chemistry lab, contained enough dangerous clear liquids that a panicked pause was more than warranted until...

"Relax Jane," assured Darcy. "He's just exhausted, he knows we are going to help him so he can finally let his body rest." she waved Jane over. "Come on, I need your hand with him, he's going to be almost as heavy as Thor was but this time we don't have Erik to help us lift him."

And that's when they saw his arm, or more accurately didn't see it. The shirt he had wrapped around his head to keep sand out of his face had fallen down on his left side leading them to think that it was covering up his left arm but as Darcy pulled the clothing off of his torso they both let out a gasp of surprise and horror; his left arm was _gone_ , it looked like it had been torn from the shoulder and what amazed and simultaneously shocked the two girls was that it was healing, the stump left at his shoulder seemed to be knitting the muscle tissue and sinews together before their very eyes.

"That level of healing is not normal," said Jane now even more reluctant to approach the man.

Darcy knew that Jane's immediate conclusions would be that he was Asgardian, she shook her head; when the woman obsessed she did it like anything else she did; with determination and single mindedness.

"He's not from there Jane, I saw his dog tags, he's a soldier and what's more his name is James B. Barnes," and that didn't get the reaction that Darcy had been hoping for. "No? Nothing? James Barnes, James 'Bucky' Barnes? Captain America's best friend? The only Howling Commando who died in the Caps leadership?"

Jane just shook her head at the intern. "Darcy I have better things to do than to know about a Super Soldier and his best friend, I mean am I glad he helped Thor defeat those aliens last year? Of course. Am I going to fangirl and dig up every known information about him? No."

Darcy sighed as she unconsciously ran a hand over Barnes' unkempt, windblown hair. "I didn't fangirl over him Jane," she replied exasperated. "But you know when six people take down an alien army which consists of but is not limited to large armored whale/turtle, robotic, hybrid monstrosities destroying small buildings, I tend to want to know a little bit more about them."

She looked from Jane to Barnes and back again and shrugged."When I read up on Captain Rogers I saw that James Barnes was a very close friend of his and his death hit the Cap hard. Unfortunately it was not long after that his plane went down and he was preserved for seventy years. Think about it Jane, he lost his best friend, didn't get the chance to grieve for him and then woke up and realized that he had lost everyone else that mattered to him, he must have been through hell. If this  _is_  Bucky Barnes? Then maybe it will be one less thing Captain America will have to grieve for."

"Darcy we don't even know if he's just a soldier whose father was a Captain America fan and named his son after Caps best friend."

Darcy shook her head again. "Look at his clothes, these are not clothes that any American military is issuing it's soldiers, a lot of improvements have been made, he isn't even wearing decent armor for his rank."

"Cos play?" Jane asked eliciting an eye roll from her friend. "And how do you even know about what soldiers wear nowadays?"

Darcy huffed. "I'm a military brat remember? Both my brother and father have served. It was in my resume, which you were supposed to look over before hiring me."

Jane shrugged. "You were the only applicant remember? I didn't _need_ to read you resume all I needed to know was your drive and commitment and while I admit your attention span is limited," she snarked earning an indignant "Hey." from her. "I never regretted my decision."

There was a moment at which both girls couldn't decide what to say, and then...

"Hmm," came from Barnes jolting them out of their reverie.

Jane wrung her hands in anticipation. "Does he need medical attention?"

Darcy shook her head. "His shoulder has almost healed, but he _is_ dehydrated and it'll take both of us to move him."

Jane nodded and jangled the keys, "I'll bring the van around." And left Darcy to slowly assist Barnes without having him wake up.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

" _Bucky! Bucky grab my hand!" He tried to reach but it was already too late; the handle he was clinging to gave way and he watched with horror filled eyes as the snow covered ground more than 500ft below came up to meet him..._

Bucky woke up with a gasp his single arm flailing trying to control his non existent fall. His breathing was labored and he was covered in sweat. Thoughts ran through his head, important thoughts, things that had happened. Through the confusion one name popped out at him.  _Steve_. He had watched as his best friend fell away from him as he fell towards the ground. The devastation was clear in his eyes and Bucky knew that this was going to hit Steve harder than anything ever had.

Bucky wasn't conceited but he knew exactly how many people Steve cared about that were still alive, he could count them all in one hand with fingers to spare and _he_ was one of them and so was that SSR Agent Carter that he had the hots for.

He knew that he needed to contact Steve, some how though when he had miraculously survived that 500 foot drop he had ended up in the desert in the middle of nowhere with his left arm gone,  _when_  he had lost his arm, he had no idea. Bucky did remember bouncing of two cliff edges before he lost consciousness it might have happened then.

After gaining his wits in the desert he set about trying to dress his wound with his rudimentary first aid skills and that's when he realized that the Red Skull and Zola had really did a number on him, he had been suspicious at times when lifting things became too easy for him, when he rarely got tired and whenever he got a cut or scrape it usually was gone within a few hours not leaving even a trace of scarring.

He hadn't mentioned it to Steve because while his new strength and healing ability spooked him, Steve had enough on his plate to be getting along with, he didn't need _Bucky's_ problems on top of his own.

So he had hid his abilities, he controlled his strength in close combat situations so as to not tip any of the commandos off but when he got the chance to engage an enemy alone he took great satisfaction in punching someone with all his strength and watch the guy fly so similar to when Steve punched people.

So when he saw his torn and still ridiculously painful shoulder slowly starting to knit back together as the muscles and sinews all healed it just confirmed his suspicions that he had been enhanced by Zola and HYDRA.

Shrugging of the uneasy feeling of being used as an experiment he had turned around and walked in a random direction reluctantly thankful that he didn't have to waste energy fixing his arm.

His random direction had ultimately led Bucky _here_ , in an unfamiliar room half sitting half lying on the couch.

Bucky finally gained the awareness to look around him and realized one thing, where ever he was now it definitely wasn't in the middle of nowhere.

The room he was in contained two pieces of furniture; the couch he was sitting in and a set of table and chairs across the room from him. The rest of the room though seemed to be covered in papers and posters and whiteboards all with jumped up theories and formulas that would never make sense to him.

Slowly as everything came to focus he saw that someone had seen fit to dress his shoulder stump, his eyes filled with unshed tears as it finally hit him, now that he was somewhere safe enough to actually break down, that his arm was no longer  _there_. It just seemed impossible to him. He had thought about a lot of things that could happen to him when he had signed up for the war but somehow losing an appendage hadn't ever seem to factor into it.

But Bucky stemmed the flow of unwanted tears immediately, there was no way he was completely breaking down in an unfamiliar and possibly hostile, place even _if_ they dressed his wounds.

He slid his legs down from the couch and made to stand up; he needed to contact Steve, let him know that he was alive and ask him to send someone to pick him up, Steve probably needed his help more than ever, yes he was Captain America and yes Bucky could be next to useless now with his lost limb but Steve didn't need the grief of his death hanging over him, knowing the punk he probably was blaming himself for Buckys death and that sort of thinking was just not something that Bucky was about to allow.

As he was about to stand though, one of the far doors opened an in walked a very attractive dame with long dark tresses, pouty red lips, brown eyes framed with non ugly looking glasses, a voluptuous figure and a relieved smile. She completed the alluring picture by holding a plate of food in one hand and some type of clothing in another.

"Oh you're awake," she said standing next to him and setting the plate down next to him on one of the many posters lying around. "I brought you food, sorry eggs and pop tarts are just about the only things we have to offer here at Café de Lewis, and I brought you a change of clothes, it belongs to one of our colleagues so I apologize in advance for the plaid. I'm Darcy by the way and me and my boss  _slash_  friend found you in the desert half dying from dehydration."

She seemed to say this all in one breath but not super fast so Bucky got every word and she seemed to be oddly excited to talk to him, Bucky though was not an imbecile and while he was a soldier that didn't mean he had forgotten his manners.

Bucky got up and shook the preferred hand. "I'm Sergeant James Barnes of the Howling Commandos ma'am," he said as he let go. "I would like to thank you for helping me, I assure you that if you help me get back to command you will be well compensated for your troubles."

Normally the dashing Bucky Barnes was a little more suave with the lady's and he would have tried to turn on the charm, kiss the back of the dames hand and flirt like crazy but he knew that the effect would be ruined by his lost arm and there was also the fact that he mostly cared about getting back to Steve and not chatting up the dames, although she  _was_  one fine looking specimen. Steve would have been appalled by the thoughts running through his mind right then.

But he focused back as Darcy let out a sigh. "Yeah about that," she took his hand in hers and led him back to the couch. "sit down and eat, you look like you need it." And as he did as she asked Darcy walked to the table and pulled out a chair which she dragged back to the couch and sat down in front of him.

He watched her while devouring the food; the Pop Tarts?, did she say, tasted incredible and was reminiscent to some of the strawberry tarts that Mrs Rogers used to make for dessert, and he hadn't had eggs for breakfast in a long time the soldiers mostly depending on MREs and game that the guys caught for food. She sighed one more time before speaking.

"James Barnes," she said pulling out a little piece of rectangular plastic that she held up and seemed to read out of. "Joined the Army at nineteen, trained and was promoted to Sergeant in just two years time, was twenty four when America went to war, was captured by German Nazi forces and was rescued by Captain Steve Rogers," she read and then looked up at him adding from her own knowledge; "aka  _Captain America_  and joined his team of Howling Commandos where he gained recognition as one of the most skilled snipers in the the American Military. During the raiding of a train holding secret Nazi developed weapons Sergeant Barnes was killed in action when a blast pushed him out of the train causing him to fall over 500ft down to his death. Barnes was awarded the Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart posthumously for his services to his country and his acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty. And it goes on to state your greatest missions blah blah, you get the idea. Is this the James Buchanan Barnes you're claiming to be?"

By now Bucky had finished his meal, he nodded his affirmation at Darcy's question he realized that it must have been much longer than he realized since he fell of that train if they had already awarded him medals posthumously but to be honest what intrigued him more was the device that Darcy was reading all this information out of.

"Yeah I'm _that_ James Barnes," he replied. He indicated the device. "What is that thing you're reading from, I don't think I've ever seen that kind of technology before." He got up for a closer look but Darcy stood up and stepped back. Bucky stopped short suddenly aware that the mood had shifted in the room.

"Never mind my phone," she said whipping out another device which looked like a small gun, he watched as she pressed the trigger and sparks lit up between the two metal prongs located at the muzzle of the 'gun'. "Know what this is? Ever been electrocuted?" Bucky had very unpleasant memories of Zola and Schmidt using their favorite method of torture on him during his stay at HYDRA so he nodded and so did Darcy. "Uh huh 50,000 volts of pure unadulterated electricity and it's in the palm of my hand so you better start telling the truth about who you are buster or its going to get very interesting over here." And she sparked the electrocuter again.

Out instinct Bucky's eyes flicked to all the possible exits and anything he could use to defend himself before looking back at those beautiful brown eyes that meant business. He had a hard time not smiling as he raised his hand up, she was feisty and unpredictable; how may people patched up your wounds, let you sleep on their couch, feed you when you woke up and then threaten to shock you. He had a feeling that Darcy was going to make his life a whole lot more interesting that it already was.

"50,000 volts?" he asked conversationally his hand still in the air. "I remember the Red Skull working his way  _up_  to 50,000 volts when he was torturing me," he almost smirked as he saw Darcy falter at the word torture, she was innocent still; he had wondered what made a dame like her carry such a heavy duty equalizer in her pocket. "Are you telling me that all that punch can be delivered by that little bit of plastic?"

"You better believe it bozo," she assured and surprisingly he did believe her. "I've dropped people way more powerful than you with this and I'm not afraid of doing it again." There was a secret smile that she showed as she boasted that told him there was more to  _that_  story than she was telling. But Bucky shook his head, it was time to get this situation under control, he had assessed the situation, analyzed the level of danger and it was now time to neutralize the threat. He remembered vaguely that Darcy was not alone when she came to rescue him and also Darcy had mentioned a boss _slash_  friend...

"Well," he said smirking evilly. "That's _me_ taken care of but what's to stop my partner from ripping out your bosses throat while you're here?" He watched her eyes widen and she dropped her weapon hand glancing quickly at the door where her boss was probably standing waiting and that was when Bucky moved. In less than two seconds he had gotten behind her snatched the weapon in her hand and turned to face her his fingers on the trigger the electrocuter facing Darcy. Even missing a limb he was still extraordinarily fast; though he hated to admit it, Zola  _had_  given him an amazing gift.

Darcy had barely managed to make a squeak of surprise at his movements but she was still looking at the door and not at her weapon now trained on her.

"Jane?" she called out tremulously his morbid description obviously traumatizing her.

"She's fine," replied Bucky as 'Jane' stepped inside the room holding a crow bar? "I have no partner and I'm not going to hurt you." He watched as Jane walked slowly over to stand next to Darcy her weapon held loosely in her hand, Bucky eyed it until she dropped it and as soon as she did he threw the Electrocuter back at Darcy and stood back watching her reaction as she caught it; she had such an expressive face.

He was rewarded when she looked back at him with a shocked face with her mouth gaping open, a glance at the girl beside her showed more of the same but less dramatic and he let out a little chuckle. When they still stared he moved to shrug and realized the movement wouldn't look like much with just one shoulder moving so he chose to roll his eyes at them.

"I never wanted to fight or hurt you. I mean you both no harm," he tried to assure them. "I could have held on to that device-"

"Taser," said Darcy.

Bucky nodded his thanks. "Taser, but I gave it back to you in good faith that you believe my words." He looked at them earnestly. "Darcy," he turned to Jane. "Ma'am all I want is to get back to my command and continue my service, if you can provide any help in achieving that goal than I would welcome it but if you are reticent then please point me to the door and I will get out of your hair. I am self-sufficient enough survive on own."

"Not without an arm you're not," replied Darcy eyeing his bandaged stump.

Bucky scowled down at his missing appendage and raised a challenging eyebrow at her. "I can manage just fine with one arm, I disarmed  _you_  didn't I?" he asked sardonically and watched with satisfaction as she flushed. "You might want to learn some self defense, when you rely too much on your weapon, no matter how strong it is, it will become your crutch and you'll be useless without it."

He turned back to Jane. "Now ma'am the door please."

Jane shook her head. "We are sorry about not believing you but you have to look at things from our perspective," Jane spoke with soft but confident tones as someone who knew how to lead people although she didn't have much experience in it, her voice was almost as authoritative as Agent Carter's. "What you're asking us to help you with is not only difficult to do but impossible. Sergeant Barnes your command post? The SSR? The Commandos? They are all gone." She said that last part as a whisper and watched as Bucky's feet fell out from under him, luckily he was standing in front of the couch and encounters a soft landing.

"So then we lost?" he asked his face haggard all the thoughts of surprising the commandos, laughing at the looks on Steve and Agent Carter's face were replaced by thought about never seeing his friends, really his  _family_ , again. And Steve, never seeing his  _best friend_  again, he was hard pressed to stem the tears again as he thought about him. But then...

"No James," said Jane softly. "We won."

And Bucky looked up hopefully but saw his sorrow reflected in her eyes.

"James the reason we don't believe you is because the war you say you fought in ended seventy years ago," Buckys eyes opened wide at that admission. "It's the year 2014 and if what you say is true than you somehow came from 1943 to 2014 in a few hours and that's just not possible."

Bucky looked from Darcy; who was now standing, hand taserless, and looking a little lost as to how to explain things to him, to Jane; who seemed determined to not believe who he was saying he was, realized that this wasn't some ridiculously elaborate joke, that they actually believed he had traveled through time.

Bucky shook his head. "Prove it," he said firmly and watched as the fire in Darcy's eyes lit up again.

"Dude  _you're_  the one who's going to need our help in navigating the future so  _you_  need to prove that you are who you say you are before  _we_  have to prove anything." She had walked her way back to the chair mid rant and sat herself down on it crossing her legs and raising one challenging eyebrow as she finished, daring him to contradict her.

Bucky thought for a moment and then nodded, if they were telling the truth and he  _was_  in the future then he was going to need their help more than they would need his. "Okay ask me anything you want."

"Hmm," Darcy said as she pulled out her phone. "SHIELD recently let all their secrets go public to stop HYDRA and a lot of files are still floating around not having been rounded up by the government. At any rate it will be easier to hack then any of SHIELD's firewalls so... there... I got it. Okay James Barnes. Here we go. Okay what is your residential street address?"

"569 Leaman Place, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn, New York City," Bucky promptly replied.

"How were you found when Captain Rogers rescued you from HYDRA?"

"I was bound to a table unconscious with tubes and needles stuck in my arms and legs, Steve had to half carry me out of there."

"What were the circumstances of you enlisting early and at such a young age into the military?" Darcy's voice now had gotten soft as he got the answers correct, she realized that the man who had had these things happen to was sitting in front of her.

"Steve," Bucky sighed but continued. "We had moved in together after his mom died, for two years I picked up any job that I could find; I bussed tables, I conducted buses, I swept and cleaned almost half of Brooklyn so that Steve could keep getting his medicine, he always tried to work too but no one wanted to hire a kid who could drop dead if he did something strenuous or breathed in something he was allergic too. He always felt guilty about me doing all the hard work and him _reaping the benefits_." Bucky grinned ruefully at his memories. "I told the punk that if lying in bed half the week and coughing or wheezing or fighting asthma attacks the other half was reaping the benefits then I was more than happy with my lot. When our landlady told us of her son being promoted to captain recently I got the idea that if I enlisted then I could keep sending money home to pay Steve's bills and still make a difference, you know "

"I don't know if I would have enlisted if Steve wasn't that sick," he said quietly. "In the end the extra money helped a lot and Steve was able to get better enough to paint and draw again and he sold some of his art for good prices but never used it, he opened an account at the bank under my name and put all that money that could have gone to his treatment in fixed deposit for me. I gave him a hell of a talking to when I found out but he wouldn't budge. More stubborn than a mule he was." Bucky wiped his eyes which had once again filled with tears.

"One last question," Darcy's own eyes were now suspiciously bright and Jane was openly crying just not realizing it. "What nickname did Captain Rogers use to refer to you even as your call sign?"

He let out a snort at that question. "He called me the same name he always called me, ever since we were kids; he called me 'Bucky'.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an observation, I know that it might seem like Steve and Bucky are more than friends but they're not. This will be Het and no main pairing will be Slash. Steve and Bucky are closer then brothers and consider each other family.


	6. The Other Captain and the Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "What?!" She heard Maria yell out, Natasha smirked anything that got Hill to break her cool was alright in the books for her.
> 
> "You heard me," she replied. "if Rogers is in New York then why am I looking down at Captain America here in DC." And sure enough, the man that she had just fished out of the Potomac, just breathed new life into, was none other than Steve Rogers; the Star Spangled Man with a Plan, Captain America.`

He had expected the cold. When Steve had made up his mind that the only way to stop the Cubes power was to dump it and the plane down into the Arctic ocean, he had been prepared for the cold.

Suddenly realizing that there was no longer a plane supporting him underneath, suddenly feeling gravity kick in and pull him towards the ground, suddenly realizing that the fast approaching terrain underneath him was  _not_  the Arctic,  _that_ he was not prepared for. He was however thankful that even though he was falling when a second ago he was piloting a plane, somehow he was going to hit water and not the tough, hard and unforgiving earth.

It only occurred to him in the last second as he hit the surface of the water that the height at which he had fallen would mean that his impact with the water would not be very different from hitting concrete at the same speed.

It was solely because of his enhanced physiology that all the bones in his body did not shatter upon impact, as it was Steve was dazed and that was not a condition that was preferable if you're treading ice cold water that seemed to be almost as deep as the sea.

He faltered and tried to move his limbs but all he could manage was a pathetic sort of flail before he went under, the cold and his half unconscious state meant that he was dead weight and he started to sink, the pressure in his lungs became excruciating and finally without any other option available, with no more strength in his arms and legs, Steve relaxed his throat and the water entered his lungs starting to drown him. He lost consciousness then.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Steve let out a desperate sputter of a breath and failed his arms comically as he came to and looked up into the most greenest eyes he had ever seen. They belonged to a pale face with full red lips and framed with fiery red hair that was right now matted to her neck and shoulders indicating that he had her to thank for his rescue, he noticed that her lipstick was smeared a little so he surreptitiously swiped at his mouth and his eyes widened as he saw the red smear on his fingers. He let out a groan of disappointment; it was just his luck that the most beautiful girl he had ever seen had her lips on his and he was unconscious for the entire experience.

Luckily someone had gotten the woman's attention and she was looking at them not noticing his groan.

Steve while conscious now could still feel stabbing pains in his legs and arms and when he tried to move one of his legs the effort made him almost cry out; his leg just shuddered and refused to cooperate. The impact with which he had hit the water had taken its toll; while his enhancements prevented him from breaking anything let alone  _dying on impact_ , it looked like every muscle in his body had been strained and he wasn't moving by himself anytime soon.

He finally resolved to wait for 'Miss Beautiful' to finish her talk on the strange plastic rectangular device in her hand before asking for help.

"If he's in New York," she was saying. "Then why did he fall out of the sky and into the Potomac at Triskelion?"

Potomac? Steve wondered, that was a river that flowed through Virginia right? She was obviously taking about him since out of the both of them  _he_  was the one who had fallen out of the sky and into a river but what in the hell was Triskelion?

The 'What!?' that came out of the plastic device could be heard even by Steve. It was a _communications device_  that she was talking to Steve concluded, sort of like the radios they had used in the war but way way smaller.'

The smirk that he saw on her face told her that she was enjoying surprising the person on the other end of the line, even smirking she looked  _captivating_  and Steve looked around him bereft in search for a pencil and paper to try and capture even a tenth of her beauty. He watched as a bead of water clinging to her hair fell down the perfect slope of her nose and down her chin and he bit his lip as he watched fascinated as the bead of water traveled across her perfect skin and further downwards until... he suddenly blushed and looked back up straight into the eyes of the woman who was obviously amused by his staring.

He breathed a sigh of relief, amused was better than offended. He didn't know what was wrong with him, he never behaved this way with dames, he was normally shy and reticent and allowed the bold dames to make a move first instead of putting himself out there and getting rejected. He couldn't remember the last time he forgot himself so much around a lady.

Her next words though made him pause. "You heard me," she said to her listener at the other end of the line. "If Rogers is in New York then why am I looking down at Captain America here in DC?"

He was in New York? Or maybe he was supposed to be? 'No I wasn't,' he thought to himself. He watched as her expressed slowly changed from amused to speculative and then decidedly suspicious.

"And you can confirm this?" she asked casting a sidelong glance at him. "Okay, thanks Hill, I'll call you back." She didn't take her eyes of him as she tossed the communication radio back to the man standing behind him and with one smooth motion her hand went down to her holster and she pulled out a gun, his eyes widened as she clicked the safety off with practiced ease and then trained the barrel straight between his eyes.

It was the most beautiful and at the same time _terrifying_ sight that he had ever seen, beautiful because he was pretty sure he was already halfway in love with her and terrifying because he couldn't move and while he was durable, he was in no way bulletproof; a shot to the head would kill him just as same as anybody else.

"You have till the count of ten to tell me who you really are and why you look like Steve Rogers," she said completely serious. "once I reach zero your times up. Ten."

"Wait, what-," Steve sputtered. "I  _am_  Steve Rogers"

"Nine."

"Now hold on ma'am," he tried again. "I'm telling the truth, I'm Steve Rogers, I'm Captain America, you've got to believe me."

"Eight," was all she said.

"Really?" he asked incredulously. "Ma'am I can't move," he watched as her hand twitched when he said ma'am, he vaguely remembered too late her telling the guy behind her that she didn't like being called that. "I've probably strained all my muscles because of the impact of landing in the water. I  _need_  you to believe me, I really  _am_  Steve Rogers."

"Seven."

This was getting ridiculous, Steve thought as he watched his beautiful murderer to be, well if he  _had_  to die, he thought morbidly. At least it was at the hands of an angel.

"Six."

"Agent Romanoff?" asked the man beside her urgently until Romanoff, was it, raised a hand for him to be silent and said...

"Five."

Steve just rolled his eyes in frustration, there was obviously no reasoning with her but he wished he could have gone down in a more heroic way than lying on a bridge, unable to move while being shot because he looked _like_ Steve Rogers;it was absurd.

"Four."

He memorized the way her green eyes shone in the mid morning sunlight determined that those orbs be the last thing he sees.

"Three."

He closed his eyes, knowing that the last words he will hear will be from her beautiful lips and wished he could have felt those lips on his own at least once.

"Two."

And Steve opened his eyes, catching her gaze again. No. He was not going down like this. If anything when and if he did go down he was determined to have the knowledge of how her lips felt beneath his and his last thoughts be of  _that_ kiss instead of the absence of one.

"On-"

"No." Steve let out in a stern voice looking straight into her eyes. "Now I know that there is some sort of misunderstanding going on here but  _I am_  Steve Rogers," he stated emphatically. "and I cannot claim to be anyone else because I am  _not_  anyone else." He decided that only way to prove his honesty was to give her a brief rundown of his life. "I was born a sickly child and struggled all through adulthood until I was given a chance by Dr Erskine who saw something in me and made me be a part of Project Rebirth; the super soldier project.

"It was successful and I came out of that chamber looking like this. Ever since, I have tried to use the gift Dr Erskine gave me to help my country and it's people. I have fought, sweat and bled for my country. I didn't just defeat Red Skull and try to crash land a plane into the Arctic sacrificing myself just to be put down like some mangy dog in the middle of the street."

"You say you know that I am not Steve Rogers. Do you know the real Steve Rogers? Do you know his history? Ask me anything about him, let me prove it to you Miss Romanoff that I am who I say I am."

When he was done she just stared impassively at him and he was sure that she was going to say "One." and shoot him anyway but somehow, miraculously, it worked; his angel of death lowered her weapon, simultaneously he felt his serum kick in, slowly but surely restoring functionality back into his limbs but he felt sure he was going to be sore as hell.

"Pretty little speech," Romanoff said and god she even looked sexy being  _sarcastic_. "But I've heard Cap give a ton of those, thing is I've watched him back it up also."

She leaned back and studied him. He felt sure that he could now stand up if he wanted to but stayed down knowing that getting up would be a  _bad idea_.

She folded her arms. "So let's see you back it up. I'll ask one question that only Cap would know, you get it wrong I put a bullet through your head, got it?"

Steve could only nod his head in agreement. God she was beautiful. God what was  _wrong_  with him. The dame was talking about putting a bullet through his head and he was crushing on her. He supposed it was no surprise; he also had had a crush on the last girl who had aimed her gun at him and she had actually fired off some rounds at him.

Miss Romanoff stared at him for a moment and then spoke. "Give me the exact details pertaining to the death of your fellow Howling Commando James Barnes.

Steve went cold which was an achievement since he was already freezing from his dip in the river. This was something he was not expecting and judging by the look in Romanoff's eyes she knew exactly how deep she had hit him without even raising her hand.

"How-?"

"Answer the damn question." she interrupted once again training her gun at him.

He almost snarled at her, everyone back at base knew that Bucky was off limits, even after the memorial they knew not to bring him up around Steve. But as he looked down the barrel of the gun pointing at him he realized that she had chosen the perfect question; only he and Bucky knew exactly what happened on that train and Steve had only told one SSR Agent; Peggy Carter and clearly Romanoff had somehow gotten her hands on that debrief.

"Okay, okay," he tried to placate and took a deep breath to fortify himself. "we received Intel about a HYDRA weapons shipment being carried out in the mountains. Because it was HYDRA the SSR shoed us in to handle it. We made a bad call and... the Intel was not complete. James - uh - Bucky and me we decided to rappel down to the train and try and take out their cache."

"What we didn't know; was that Dr Arnim Zola an associate of Red Skulls was on board and he was watching our every move and directing his HYDRA soldiers accordingly. When we opened the first box of weapons we saw that all the weapons on the train were made from the energy of the Cube and that's when all hell broke loose."

"The soldiers were suited up in Cube powered armor and were handling Cube powered weapons. During the fight I was knocked aside and Bucky grabbed my shield used it to block bullets but a blast from the HYDRA soldiers weapon blew a hole on the side of the train knocked Bucky sideways. I quickly grabbed my shield which had fallen near me and took care of that last soldier and approached the hole in the side of the train."

"When I looked out I saw Bucky clinging into one of the walls, holding on the his life, I quickly got outside and reached out to Bucky telling him to grab my hand, but just as he was reaching out the handle he was clinging to ripped of the wall and sent him down into the snowy canyons at least 500 feet down. We never even found his body."

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Natasha Romanoff still had her gun trained on him but that was mostly because she was shocked at the absolute grief in the eyes of the supposed Captain Rogers; the Rogers she knew barely let any emotion show and was always business, even when he had found out who the Winter Soldier really was he had been mostly stoic. But with this man she could see that his eyes had filled with tears he was barely keeping at bay as he described the death of his closest childhood friend.

Natasha had of course read the reports, shield had an extensive record cataloging all of Steve's missions and all the casualties but she had never heard the events be described in that way. Slowly she lowered her gun turned the safety on and holstered it. Contrary to popular belief the Black Widow was not an emotionless bitch, and she recognized any time she was being fed bullshit; this was not one of those times. Somehow some way the man lying prone and defenseless in front of her  _was_  Steve Rogers.

Hill had said that Cap was most definitely in New York and that she had his vitals on display and nothing indicated loss of consciousness or water in the lungs or any form of distress whatsoever; all his vitals were normal. This made her amusement at Cap staring at her cleavage morph into suspicion and so she had pulled her gun on him.

She had been serious about the countdown; if he didn't give her a compelling reason than there was going to be a very dead Captain America clone on the bridge at Triskelion. As it was he had managed to convince her enough to explain himself and so she had given him a chance asking him to tell her about one of his missions more specifically James Barnes' death. This information she knew was only known by her and possibly Director Fury and had not been dumped on the Internet because the files were only hard copies and was not recorded digitally.

And so she had listened as he detailed one of the last missions that the Howling Commandos did and at the end of it she knew one thing; something strange was going on. Hill had guaranteed that Cap was no where near DC but Natasha was pretty sure that the man lying in front of her  _was_  Captain America, she took in his suit and recognized it as the suit that Cap had stolen from the exhibit to fight HYDRA right here at Triskelion only a couple of weeks ago. She got a strange idea.

"What is the last thing you remember?" she asked her no nonsense voice cracking like a whip.

"I had defeated the Red Skull, and I knew that I had to stop the plane from reaching it's destination so I had just taken the the pilots seat to take it off course. The next thing I knew, I was falling out of the sky."

Something clicked and Natasha realized looking at his suit that this was not  _her_ Captain America, not that she had or wanted any claim over Cap, no this was the man who had been contemplating crashing the HYDRA plane, along with himself, into the Arctic to save the world only ten minutes ago. This was not a man frozen in accidental cryogenic sleep who had woke up in a different century, this was a guy who had been transported directly from 1943 to 2014 without any possible explanation as to why or how.

Eventually though Natasha knew that they could not stay out in the open like this, the press going to be here soon the last thing they needed was a story about two Captain America's and the Black Widow threatening to kill one of them.

"Can you walk?" she asked and he nodded. As he struggled to stand Natasha held out her hand and he grabbed it pulling himself up to his feet. He swayed dangerously and Natasha clasped his upper arm with an iron grip to support him as a they walked slowly into the lobby of the Triskelion.

Before they entered the door though Steve looked at his left hand and then around the base and into the river. "Did anyone see my shield?" he asked almost panicky.

The Agent who had been ghosting them spoke up. "I uh think I saw something fall on the roof, maybe..." he trailed off.

"Get it," she commanded and the Agent ran off while Natasha led them to one of the sofas in the lobby which had not been destroyed. When he sat down she scrutinized him. "How's your healing."

"It's fine," he replied. "I'll probably be good to go in about half an hour."

Natasha nodded and noticed that he seemed to have trouble looking into her eyes, then as she turned around she watched him out of the corner of her eyes check her out. Natasha smirked,  _Captain America_  was crushing on her, it was amusing because the Captain America that she knew while obviously good looking was extremely stoic and business like, he rarely ever let his hair down and was always focused on his work. She understood why and it hadn't bothered her as she had not been looking for more from him but now looking at the startling contrast between this new Cap and her Cap, her Cap's standoffishness seemed to glare out at her. She wondered what happened differently to cause the glaring dissonance.

"You said there was another Steve Rogers."

Natasha cursed under her breath, she was hoping to not have to explain this to him, mostly because she didn't even know how the hell this came to be but she still turned to look at Steve.

"I did," she confirmed, he was looking into her eyes now and while his cheeks were tainted red he maintained eye contact, Natasha almost smiled; she could get used to this attention.

"What did you mean by that?" he asked determinedly.

She glanced at his legs. "You okay to walk now?"

Steve nodded, and stood up. It looked like he was still in pain but she knew not to question it, soldiers like them didn't like to feel useless, she understood that better than anybody.She led him to one of the still functioning briefing rooms at ground floor and pulled up a holoscreen. She pulled up some basic info about SHIELD. "The building you're inside right now is a former SHIELD headquarters. SHIELD was founded by Margaret Carter and other members of the SSR and funded by Howard Stark. It was created in light to your disappearance into the Arctic along with the Tesseract."

She noticed him shift slightly at the mention of Carter and gave him a rueful look. "Records state that you requested to speak to Carter before you crashed the plane, do you remember doing that?"

Steve shook his head. "Peggy was angry at me. She had seen one of the Agents kiss me, without my involvement on my part, and had gotten pissed, she actually fired about four rounds at me. I guess we did kiss in the heat of battle but I didn't have time and didn't think to request to speak to her."

Natasha nodded her okay at that. "So SHIELD never actually gave up searching for you," Steve frowned at the picture of the excavated HYDRA plane and the picture of a vaguely humanoid shape, dressed in red, white and blue behind a block of ice. "Two years ago, we found you. You were an ice cube." Steve almost smiled at her description and she nodded, she knew that Fury's idea of isolating the newly thawed out Captain America was not a good idea and it showed, the Cap she knew was so emotionally closed off that she didn't even blame Stark at having a go at him, the Steve standing in front of her seemed to be less jaded and more easy going, although she knew that when it came to a fight this Steve would probably be just as formidable and instrumental as the other Captain.

"When we thawed you out," she continued. "We saw that your vitals were still kicking, they were weak but you were still alive." Steve's eyes widened at that. "Erskine's formula, the Super Soldier Serum, helped keep you preserved and in a cold induced hibernation for seventy years and two years ago you were woken up again."

She ran the footage of Cap waking up in a forties style room, footage of him standing on the helicarrier with her and Banner, the Stuttgart footage of him fighting Loki, him and Ironman repairing the helicarrier turbines, and all the footage captured of him directing and fighting with the Avengers at the Battle of New York.

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Steve watched in amazement as a green hulking creature the size of a Mac truck smirked at his command and jumped hundreds of feet in the air to smash, we're those aliens?, into the buildings. "What...?"

Natasha folded her arms and smirked at him as the footage showed her and Cap fighting in tandem dropping Chitauri left and right. "You can understand how I had a hard time believing you weren't an imposter."

Steve nodded absently his eyes still on the holoscreen. "But that's ... me," he pointed at the Cap on screen as he worked with Ironman redirecting his lazer with the shield. "I would recognize myself anywhere except it's not me because I don't remember going to New York and fighting Aliens seventy years in the future."

Natasha put a hand on his on his folded bicep. "Steve, this  _is_  seventy years into the future, and I don't think he," she nodded at the Cap on the screen. "is actually you, he was  _frozen_  in ice for seventy years and lived in isolation for almost another year, he's had to relive crashing into that ocean and for all intents and purposes dying and then waking up into the future with all your friends, everyone you ever knew, dead or about to die. He had to deal with it all alone because our Director made what I think was a bad call."

She watched as the light in his eyes left him as he turned over her words in his head. "They really are gone aren't they?" he asked finally. "If what you say is true then they must be gone. The commandos? Peggy? Howard? All gone?"

Natasha squeezed his arm in consolation, she was not a tactile person and while the situation might call for a hug, she didn't think he'd appreciate being hugged by a complete stranger, no matter how much he appreciated her body.

She was quiet as he got a hold of himself and then looked back at the screen. "Should I meet him?" he asked hesitantly.

Natasha frowned, should he? Right now Cap was dealing with finding out that his best friend who had died seventy years ago was still alive and turned into a HYDRA weapon, the most devastating of HYDRA weapons at that. Now might not be the best time for him to discover that another version of him somehow time traveled to the very same time in which  _he_  had woken up in. But Natasha knew what it was like to have no control over her actions to be forced to not do something when she knew she should do it so she decided...

"If you want to meet him then I'll take you," she promised hoping that she wouldn't regret her rash decision.

Steve looked almost horrified at the idea and shook his head. "No I don't think that that's a good idea, not right away at least," he said emphatically. "I don't know how he'll react but if I know myself at all I'm willing to bet it won't be positive whatever it is."

Natasha nodded. "And let's face it," she added. "It's not just his reaction we have to worry about." After all she had absolutely no idea how the Steve with her was going to react when meeting his doppelganger and she was willing to put _that_ particular meeting on hold for as long as possible.

They watched the video feed silently as the Cap on the screen took out Chitauri left and right. "What are those things you are fighting?" he asked curious.

Natasha smiled as she watched Cap give her a boost helping her grab onto one of the Chitauri gliders before answering his question. "The Chitauri, we don't know much about them, even after examining all the remains they left behind all we've been able to confirm was that they were some cybernetic-biological hybrid that reproduces by the droves in order to conquer any and all territory they encounter." She paused as the image showed Loki grabbing one of Hawkeye's arrows. "that's Loki; he's the brother of Thor the guy with the red cape and hammer? Loki brought the Chitauri to earth looking to rule us, he said they were provided to him by some unknown source who promised him earth in return for the Tesseract which was in possession of SHIELD at the time."

Steve looked at Loki's image frowning. "Thor? Loki?" he asked perturbed. "Sounds like Norse God's from the Edda."

"Well yes," replied Natasha. "That's exactly what they claim to be. Thor is over a thousand years old and Loki and him grew up together."

Steve looked at her with an incredulous expression well past disbelief but before he could question her further there was a loud rumbling sound heard from over head, it sounded very similar to the Jets of a large airplane.

They both looked at each other and silently shelved their conversation Natasha leading them out, they ran into a frantic Agent Whatever His Name Was.

"Agent Romanoff a 'Bus' just landed on the roof."

"We have a Globemaster mobile?" Natasha asked her eyes wide.

"I found Captain Rogers shield and was attempting to retrieve it when it flew over head and headed for the landing pad, I came down as fast as I could."

"That's not what I asked Agent," said Natasha testily as they ascended the stairs. "Is there any record of an active Globemaster in SHIELD?"

The Agent shook his head. "No ma'a-, uh, Agent Romanoff not as far as I know."

Natasha nodded and readied her gun, the man was a typical SHIELD Agent but his clearance level was high enough that he would know if a Bus was being used, this meant only one thing...

**XKXKXKXKXK**

Steve was hot on Agent Romanoff's heels as they arrived on the top floor the only one out of breath being the still unnamed Agent. Apparently buses _flew_ in 2014 and one had landed on the roof. Steve chose to ponder on  _that_  notion later.

They both took positions on either side of the door leading to the roof. Romanoff looked at him for a second and held out a hand. "We haven't been properly introduced," she said as he curiously took her small but definitely strong and capable hands in his own. "Natasha Romanoff," she said. "More widely known as Black Widow."

Steve wondered as that moniker for a second and then nodded. "Steve Rogers at your service, Natasha."

Natasha looked at him a second longer. "You're familiar with HYDRA Captain?" she asked rhetorically. But Steve nodded anyways. "Good, because there is a good chance that there are HYDRA forces on the other side of that door and I will need your help making sure that they  _stay_  on the other side of that door. Can I count on you to help me Cap?"

Steve blinked once and then nodded again. "Good, just don't get yourself killed." But as she moved to open the door Steve grabbed her upper arm lightly and on impulse kissed her straight on the lips. It was perhaps the suddenness or the inappropriateness that probably prevented him from getting his ass kicked but when he pulled back all he got was a look of confused curiosity.

"When you counted down to two, I told myself that I wanted to kiss those lips at least once before I die so..." he shrugged unrepentant because even without her kissing back those were the sweetest lips he had ever kissed, including Peggy's.

As he let go to allow her to open the door Natasha looked at him sternly. "You're still not allowed to die out there Rogers," she said to him. "because after  _that_  the only person allowed to kill you is me."

Steve nodded once more. "Yes ma'am." And both, ignoring the wide eyed Agent witnessing the weird scene, opened the door and ran out onto the roof to confront the new arrivals.

**XKXKXKXKXK**


	7. The Captains Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously;
> 
> Peggy watched in horror as the flat device Pepper was talking was offered to her to speak into. And as Peggy looked down at the piece of plastic a familiar voice floated up to her and pierced her heart almost causing it to stop. "Hello? Hello? Who's there?" Called the unmistakable voice of Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers, aka Captain America usually came off as pretty stoic, he was considered boring, uninteresting and sort of a boy scout by people who didn't really make the effort to get to know him. They usually didn't get much of an opportunity, to be fair, Steve isolated himself like nobody else.

It wasn't as if he didn't have any reason for his standoffishness but it still made for a lonely existence when most people couldn't see past the stars and stripes at the person that he was. When he had first met Tony Stark, Steve had assumed that he would be exactly like his father, given that he looked exactly like him. Steve had been starved of any human connection for nearly a year, being told by Fury that it was for his own good.But all it had done was make him desperate for some sort of human connection with anybody. Besides Bucky Howard had been one of his closest friends, so when he saw Starks photo on the folder Fury had given him, for a brief torturous and glorious moment he deluded himself into thinking that his friend had survived until he read the name and the lists of accomplishments credited to that name.The SHIELD file wasn't flattering, for every note of heroism and philanthropy accredited to Tony and Ironman's name there was a notation about just how reckless, arrogant egotistical and maniacal the man was, where ever it was mentioned that he was a genius of mind blowing proportions there was also mention of how much of a loner and a non team player he was. It had served to make his stomach turn when he read that his friends kid had turned out to be so different from his dad.Howard had been a playboy yes, but the man had been a responsible and brilliant physicist and had always been ready to work with others to help his country and his friends and while he enjoyed a good glass of whiskey every now and then he was never an alcoholic like his son turned out to be. Steve had wondered briefly how disappointed Howard would have been if he had seen how his son had turned out.Needless to say Cap wasn't too thrilled when Ironman had joined them in the hunt for the Cube, they had clashed immediately and proceeded to do so over and over again until Phil Coulson's death shook them enough to try and work together to stop the invasion.During the fight Steve had gained a new respect towards Stark, he had always reserved judgement on people but with Stark he had slipped and taken what SHIELD had to say about him for granted, assuming incorrectly that an intelligence agency like them would get their facts straight.Turned out, that they hadn't updated their files on him about what circumstances led him to actually develop his first Ironman suit given that Tony refused to be debriefed on the subject, he had gotten this particular information on Stark through Natasha while the newly recalibrated Barton flew them towards New York and the Chitauri invasion.Watching from a distance as Starks Ironman took out aliens coming down from the portal with crude efficiency gained him a lot more respect in Caps eyes than he had thought possible. The man had had his chest opened up and a car battery powered electromagnet installed in order to help him survive long enough to build a missile for a group of terrorists who had already been using most of his weapons to wage war against America itself.Caps view of Ironman drastically changed all throughout the battle as he proved that he was more of a team player than SHIELD could ever had predicted working seamlessly with the Avengers and strategizing almost as well as Cap himself, but what cemented Caps belief that Tony was just as much of a Hero as the rest of them was the complete lack of his own wellbeing as he had redirected that nuke heading to flatten them all and taken it into an unknown dimension, galaxy or even universe without an ounce of guarantee of returning back to earth, heck Cap himself had thought that it was a one way trip and had told him so and all he got back was Tony telling JARVIS to save some power for the _trip back_.Even then, after Tony had been saved by Hulk and woken up, and Cap had figured that he had learned anything and everything there was to learn about Tony Stark and now looked at him in a more favorable light he still was swept off his feet when, after having evicted Loki from his penthouse, post Shwarma, and when all the Avengers had taken off their metal suits, shed off their cowls, put down their bows, gotten out of their cat suits, put down their hammers and calmed down from their rage, a whirlwind of delicate arms and legs clad in a figure hugging white business suit had entered through the elevator and started to rave and scream at the caught off guard Tony Stark who after looking at the woman in surprise for a few seconds had taken the admonishing with grace and surprising, still, contrite demeanor."Anthony Edward Stark!" rang the sharp voice through the spacious penthouse. Thor startled dropped the toaster he was examining and tried to look innocent, Barton's fingers had clenched minutely in reflex not one to be fond of surprises but used to suppressing his reaction to it, Bruce almost asleep due to exhaustion barely even registered the sound, Cap himself had stood up reflexively; his army training kicking in and well reminding him of the various times Agent Carter had burst into their mass rooms or quarters yelling out of the full name of some foolhardy officer who had gotten on her bad side, while Natasha seemed to lean back in her seat and presented an air of someone who was going to be thoroughly enjoying the next few minutes, all of this she managed without a single change of her facial expressions.But Tony's reaction was by far the most entertaining and interesting; he let out an in-eloquent squeal and fell off of the arm of the sofa where he was sitting next to Dr Banner talking science not realizing or maybe not caring that the man was dozing off.Tony had scrambled back up to his feet using the arm of the sofa for support and had taken cover behind it for a moment making sure that  who he had heard was actually standing in the room and then he got to his feet letting out a deceptively joyful, "Pep, hi. When did you get back?" and then she was on him letting out load after load of anger onto the surprising unruffled if slightly guilty looking Tony Stark and as quick as her anger had appeared it had faded.With a shuddering breath she had held up an almost replica of the device Stark usually carried around with him and showed his picture with the words '1 Missed Call, Tony' written underneath. "Y-you called me." She said stuttering, "And I didn't pick up and then you... you...." she stumbled over her words and then seemed to regain balance, "Y-you don't... don't get to do this to me Tony," she said as she poked him in the chest, Steve thought that she might have wanted to poke in the center of his chest but she had to avoid the chest piece that kept him alive. "You don't get to leave me here alone while you go sacrificing yourself to save the world.""Pepper, the nuke," Tony said quietly. "It was the only way..."The lady's, Pepper's eyes flashed. "Then you should have let it hit New York and gotten away, not... not..." And finally the tears she had been holding back broke through and fell down her beautiful freckled cheeks as she let out an agonized sob.Steve watched in awe as the man he had labeled as egotistical, self-centered, arrogant and frankly dangerous gently tilted Pepper's head up with a finger under her chin to look into her eyes and said. "You know you don't rally mean that." Pepper looked defiant for a moment but then her shoulders slumped and she nodded dejectedly.Tony gathered the now silently weeping woman in his arms and pulled her close and Steve looked on feeling like a voyeur as he witnessed one of the most intimate embraces he had ever seen.Tony was amazingly gentle with her treating her as something precious that he could not bear to lose. He whispered soft reassurances into her ear and watched as Pepper slowly calmed down enough to notice everyone else in the room.Introductions from the Avengers and sniffling apologies from Pepper, which were waved off, commenced. Pepper Potts was a statuesque strawberry redhead with legs that went on for miles and probably the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen, and this wasn't only because of her looks which were more than  attractive but the way she carried herself and the way she treated everybody, it was clear that this was her home but she didn't even blink an eye at the presence of five strangers lounging in her living room.She greeted Natasha though with a fond smile and actually hugged her for a second, "I never got to thank you, Natalie," Steven enhanced hearing allowing him to hear her whispered words to which almost smiled and then genuinely returned the hug whispering back, "It was nothing, Pepper," and pulled back.She politely shook everyone else's hand and looked wistfully at the sleeping Dr Banner wishing out loud that she could thank him for saving her boyfriends life.Tony assured her that she would have plenty of time to talk to Bruce later and led her over to a chair, sitting her down and fussing to her about jet lags and long flights and the obvious long walk she had endured because the traffic was blocked for about a ten block perimeter around Stark Towers.All of this had served to make Steve completely do a one-eighty in regards to what he had thought of Tony Stark. He was sure  the man could be a pain whenever he wanted, he now knew though, that Tony was someone he could count on as a team member and  maybe someday an even closer friend than Howard had been.All in all Steve had smiled instead of scowled as Tony's name flashed on the screen of his phone as he got up to answer it. He was right now in his Brooklyn apartment catching some shut eye before taking up his search to find Bucky again.He picked up the phone and promptly dropped it, cursing under his breath as it slid underneath his bed. Steve got on his knees and looked under the bed at the still ringing phone just out of his reach, Steve stretched out his hand his fingers scrambling against the rug as he struggled to get a hold of the thing, the ring tone then went silent and he stood up, he wished he could lift the bed off the floor and pick up the fallen device but his bed was bolted to the floor made of wrought iron; he tended to thrash around a lot in his sleep when in the throes of a nightmare and woke up with his bed on the other side of the room or worse completely decimated, an iron bed bolted down reduced the damage he caused and kept the landlord off his back.Eventually long after the phone had stopped ringing Steve managed to retrieve the device by using a broom handle to pull it towards him and then he just stared at it, answering a call on the blasted thing was simple enough but he had absolutely no idea how to figure out who had been calling a minute ago and call them back. He fiddled with the thing for a while before giving it up as a bad deal, he figured if the caller had really wanted to talk to him they would call again.Steve shrugged and went into the kitchen to make himself some light breakfast, he would meet Sam in the lobby in two hours time and they would together chase down the leads they had uncovered citing Winter Soldier sightings in New York. Of course there would be a lot of false leads as Steve had found out his first day out investigating; conspiracy theorists had been spotting the Winter Soldier for years now, ever since stories of his first missions floated over to the US and they published huge stories about him destroying an entire building which had actually been scheduled for demolition, holding him responsible for deaths that had come about by completely natural causes, one woman even claimed to be married to the Winter Soldier; Sam gave her the card of a self help group he knew in New York.Every now and then though, they came across a story about the exploits of a man with a metal arm with a five point star on his shoulder a mask blocking view of his mouth and nose, his eyes a dead grey; emotionless and cold as he appeared killed someone and disappeared. Stories told of him being methodical, calculating, precise, cold and extremely accurate, he worked alone and used a variety of weapons in his arsenal including but not restricted to his own left arm which was both a prosthetic and a dangerous weapon. The story went that if you ever became the target of the Winter Soldier you would never know he was after you, you'd be dead before you figured that out.But recent stories told different accounts; a woman ,clearly sane this time, claimed that someone with long shoulder length hair tied at the back with grey eyes and a closed of expression with a metal prosthetic hand had saved her from getting mugged or worse by a gang of thugs in an alleyway. She had claimed that just as one of the thugs had grabbed her arm while the rest were gloating about how that were going to enjoy her a dark figure dropped down from one of the fire escapes of the second story and proceeded to destroy the men, non of the thugs survived the encounter.Even as she had turned to thank her savior the woman had discovered that the man was gone. He was more or less a ghost story but after Project Insight it seemed the stories told of a vigilante ghost instead of an cold ruthless assassin.These stories were the ones that gave Steve hope, when they arrived at the scenes of these events they found nothing, not one shred of evidence suggesting the Winter Soldiers present and that only made him more certain, he was meticulous in covering his tracks and from what Steve had read about him this was normally his MO.It was these incidences that Steve asked around about and he usually got a good accounting of it instead of garbled rubbish from conspiracy nuts.

 

Apparently New York had gained a new Vigilante.

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Steve's phone didn't ring again but five minutes after he finished his hearty breakfast his SHIELD communicator pinged into life. The ping was not supposed to register on normal human ears unless said comm unit was inside the humans ear but thanks to the serum Steve registered the soft ping from the bottom of his dresser draw while he had his kitchen tap on, doing the dishes.Steve toweled off his hands and walked over to his bedroom to pull out the unit, he clipped on the receiver to his belt and pushed to comm into his ear pressing the button and calling out cautiously, "Rogers," after all SHIELD was supposed to be shut down whoever was contacting him could be an enemy. He breathed a sigh of relief though when the clipped tones of Former Deputy Director of SHIELD, Agent Hill, answered back."Agent Hill," said Steve walking to his suit case and pulling out his outfit. "Good to hear your voice, sir." He had learned the hard way not to call her ma'am but she was his superior so he had to offer some mode of acknowledgment to her rank."Not an Agent anymore Cap," she replied. "You know that."Steve smiled at her tone, for some reason he could not fathom Agent Hill had always held a more flirtatious tone when communicating with him than with any other Agent, it always threw him for a loop when Agents mentioned the ice queen when referring to Hill when all he ever encountered was warm regard from her."Well Maria from what I hear you are one of the parties involved in the main workings to get SHIELD back up and running again.""And from what I hear Steve it says that you won't be a part of that SHIELD like last time."Steve sighed at those words. "Last time Maria, I seemed to have been more a part of HYDRA than of SHIELD and until I can be sure where the new SHIELD's loyalties lie I cannot give them mine."He could almost feel Hill wince at the reminder of the past months events. "You're right to be cautious Captain," she finally replied. "But I think once you meet the new Director you'll be able to know where SHIELD's loyalties lie."Steve frowned. "I would have assumed since you are making such an effort to get SHIELD up and running again that you would be Director.""I refused Fury's offer," she replied. "And recommended a better person for the job, I think once you meet him Cap, you'll see why."Before Steve could ask more though she changed the subject. "But even though I wouldn't mind, I didn't call on you just to chat Cap. Pepper wants to speak to you.""Miss Potts?" asked Steve plaintively."I'll patch you through, it seems to be urgent I've never heard her so flustered and frankly pissed off before, she normally more laid back and controlled."And Steve heard a couple of clicks register before his communicator flared up again. "Steve?""Uh, yes ma'am?" Pepper Potts was one person who made him revert to his Brooklyn manners, the woman was just so classy, he once again wondered exactly how she had ended up with Stark."Thank God," she answered. "We've been trying to reach you for ages.""That was you Miss Potts?" he asked looking at his phone. "Or Tony I guess. Well ma'am I couldn't reach the phone in time and since Tony didn't teach me how to use the thing properly..." he trailed off not wanting to raise the woman's ire by insulting Tony, he was told she was fiercely protective of him."Oh he didn't, did he?" she asked her tone edgy and he got the feeling that Tony was in the room with her. "Well I'll be having a talk with him later," she paused. "And what did I say about calling me ma'am?""To not to ma'a... uh, Pepper," he answered chastened."Exactly," she said her tone self satisfied.Then she got on to her reason for calling. "Steve I know you must be busy but there is someone here who wants to speak to you."Steve frowned, who did he know from Starks that would want to speak to him. "Who is it?" he asked. "Do I know them?""Oh I think you'll remember her very fondly," said Pepper coyly.Her. It was a woman? At Stark Tower? Steve could think of no one who would want to contact him from there, much less a woman, but he called out none the less when he heard Pepper pass on the phone."Hello?" he asked getting no answer."Hello?" he asked again. Who's there?"A hesitant voice answered and Steve received the shock of his life."H-Hello?" she asked hesitantly. "Steve? Hi... uh... it's... uh... it's me."Steve blinked a couple of times, if he had been holding a phone he would have dropped it again by now because he recognized that voice. It was a voice that he hadn't even heard in the century he had woken up in.It was in fact the voice he had last heard as he had crashed into the frozen ocean with the HYDRA plane. It had had the same distortions as the electronic communication he was right now hearing through the comms. He had last heard this voice as he promised her that he would meet her at the club in Brooklyn for that promised dance knowing full well that he would never get to see her again. He had had that voice, her voice, haunt him every night since waking up in 2012But here he was on the other end of the line from the same voice which sounded like it hadn't aged a day, when he knew better. "Peggy," he asked disbelievingly and he heard the voice of Peggy Carter let out a startled gasp.

 

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	8. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "One last question," Darcy's own eyes were now suspiciously bright and Jane was openly crying just not realizing it. "What nickname did Captain Rogers use to refer to you even as your call sign?"
> 
> He let out a snort at that question. "He called me the same name he always called me, ever since we were kids; he called me 'Bucky'."

Darcy let out a slow breath and stood up and started pacing. "Okay," she said. "okay, okay, okay." she repeated her voice getting higher on each repetition, she stopped and turned back to Bucky. "Okay, you're  Bucky Barnes."

Bucky nodded. "Yes, I know I am and that's what I've been trying to convince you of, looks like I succeeded."Jane piped up. "But Sergeant James Barnes fought with the Howling Commandos in World War II when he was only twenty six."Bucky's voice grew somber. "There were a lot of young men in the Army, a lot younger than me, all of them trying to fight for their country but most of them just ended up dying for somebody else's cause."Jane cleared her throat her eyes filled anew with tears she refused to let drop. "Yes but that's just it, you don't look a day older than thirty so you can understand our skepticism.""Twenty eight actually," he corrected her smiling slightly. "And yeah I can understand your position but I just proved to you that I am who I say I am so, you can understand how it can be hard for me to believe that this is the future because looking around this place all I see are a couple of high tech devices and desks, white boards and a whole lot of notes on astronomy? none of which seems very futuristic to me. I mean where are the flying cars and the totalitarian governments and the robotic servants and the ray guns and stuff, where is all that?"Darcy was looking at him incredulously. "Dude, and I thought that they were overshooting the future when they made Bladerunner!" she exclaimed not without some amusement coloring her tone. "You guys actually thought that seventy years from the 1940s there would flying cars and droids?"Bucky just shrugged."Well we don't have any of those okay," she reconsidered for a moment. "Well maybe the totalitarian government  bit but I don't know if those iPod thieving Agents were an actual part of the government or not."Bucky then went to fold his arms smugly but then realized her had only one arm and frowned down in consternation. "Well, I want to believe you but all that's going through my head right now is that this is a clever HYDRA ploy to get me to reveal the SSRs secrets."Darcy looked highly affronted at _that_ suggestion, so affronted that  she just sputtered for a bit at him incoherently before huffing and folding her arms looking pointedly away from him.

Bucky winced at her reaction. "Sorry, I'm overly cautious after my kidnapping," tried feebly Darcy still not looking at him. "for what it's worth, I really don't think that you're HYDRA, I just don't want to be tricked, ya know. Besides you haven't given me any proof to the contrary."Jane looked warily at Darcy who seemed to about to erupt with indignation. "You want proof Mister James 'I'm So Sure of Myself' Barnes, I'll give you proof." and she stormed off in a huff."She's a little firecracker, isn't she?" he said looking at Jane who just raised an eyebrow at him."She just didn't take the insinuation from you that we might be part of an evil Nazi organization well, an insinuation  that I do not appreciate either, however I am a little less dramatic at showing my indignation at your accusation than Darcy."Bucky chose to remain silent after that. A few minutes passed by and then Darcy came back into the room, a lock of hair had fallen out of her brushed arrangement and dangled in front of her face, she stared at it in frustration blowing it out of her eyes as she stomped into the room; she couldn't brush the annoying lock away because she was carrying a large silver lock box in her hands. It was embossed with some kind of circular symbol of an eagle looking to the left with horizontal and diagonal patterns on the bottom half of the circle.Bucky immediately shot up from his seat and started to offer his hand when he realized, quite morosely, that he couldn't offer any help with only one hand. A quiet anger surged through him at his predicament; he hated being useless, he had hated it when Steve was sick and he couldn't do a damn thing to make him better, he had hated it when he had been strapped on that experiment table with Zola and Schmidt experimenting on him and he never hated it more than right now when his own body had betrayed him, he now realized what he was; a handicap and he hated it so much.His anger must have shown on his face because as Jane took the box from her all of Darcy's residual anger at his accusation drained from her face and a gentle look of sympathy took it's place, Bucky looked away, he could stand the anger but the pitying look made his skin crawl. For the first time he wished that he hadn't survived the fall that had taken his arm, for all his talk about getting back to the SSR he knew he would be just as useless there without his arm as he was here, and his resentment and hate for Zola, Red Skull and HYDRA became tenfold, they might have given him super strength and the ability to survive mortally fatal injuries but what use was surviving if he was an invalid?He felt Darcy's soft touch on his shoulder and felt a tendril of pleasure as he saw that she touched his left shoulder; she didn't go out of his way to avoid his injury, try to pretend it wasn't there, she acknowledged it. "Bucky, I'm not going to pretend to understand what you're going through, I would never even want to imagine what I would do if I..." she trailed off. "Anyway, I just want to say thank you for trying to help me, to me it's the thought that counts; you wanted to help even though I might think it a little chauvinistic."Bucky snorted at that and turned to her. "I prefer to think of it as chivalrous, being a gentleman.""Yeah, you would," she replied. "But seriously Bucky, one of the perks about being in the 21st century is that the prosthetics these days are almost more functional then a real hand, and I can hook you up." she stepped up to his right side and hooked her hand through his right one at the elbow and made him turn around towards Jane who during their heart to heart had unlocked the lock box and was shuffling through the contents."Ah yes. Well you still haven't convinced me that I am seventy years in the future yet," he said it in jest all his anger forgotten, it was hard to stay angry in the presence of Darcy's personality.Darcy scowled at his stubbornness but this time it was more playful. "Well I think it's time we proved it to you, isn't it," she said coyly. "And we'll start by banishing the ridiculous notion of us being HYDRA from your mind, I mean look at me, do you think this" she indicated her body very provocatively. "would look good with a snake emblem or maybe a swastika? I think not."Bucky was hard pressed not to smile at her antics, he recognized it for what it was though; a distraction to get his mind off of those morbid thoughts he'd been having, he played along though; he didn't want to linger on those thoughts just as much as Darcy didn't."You have to know though," he said mischievously as they approached the table where Jane had set the box down. "I never really suspected you to be HYDRA. I mean anyone who's as adorable as you has no business being part of a evil secret organization."Darcy pouted. "Adorable," she asked. "I'm not adorable! Kinda cute? Maybe. Beautiful? Possibly. Sexy? Most definitely! But not adorable, I am not a twelve year old."Jane let out a little giggle at Bucky's incredulous expression. "Actually Darcy, while you are definitely all of that, there's just no denying that you are absolutely, most definitely adorable."Darcy pouted more deeply at being ganged up on like that proving the other two right with her expression."So," said Jane pointedly. "What is it that you wanted to show him from here?" she looked down at the box and Bucky followed her gaze.The box contained three compartments, one of which held a stack of folders all stamped with the same logo as the box and S.H.I.E.L.D written in large block letters at a diagonal angle underneath that it was written - LEVEL 6 AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED. Another compartment, to Bucky's surprise, held a pair of pistols, pistols of the like he had never seen before, they were fitted inside foam molds that looked like it was made especially for them, they were mostly a glowey bluish color and there were three magazines for each, he could see the bullets from the side; each magazine had different color bullets.The third compartment was recessed and had a lid. Darcy took a ring of keys from Jane and unlocked that lid and opened it to reveal photographs? They were face down in a pile and Darcy picked up the pile, closed the lid and walked to the couch sitting on it and asking wordlessly for Bucky to sit beside her, Jane took a seat on Darcy's other side and split the photographs between them. Darcy handed one to Bucky. It showed Darcy hugging a large handsome blonde man with long hair and beard  he seemed to be wearing some kind of medieval viking armor and had a large mallet style hammer in the hand that was not holding Darcy close, he had a large carefree smile on his face as he looked at the camera.Two things hit him at seeing the picture, the first was amazement at the fact that the picture was colored, all the photographs he had seen were black and white, color photography hadn't been invented where he was from.The second thing that hit him was an astonishing amount of jealousy at the man holding Darcy so close, making her smile like that. It surprised him the level of emotion it was, he had barely even known the girl for two hours and within that time she had threatened to electrocute him! He had no business feeling possessive of Darcy, but even as he told himself that he looked at the man's left hand with envy, it was wrapped around Darcy's waist; he was never going to be able to hold her close like that.As he sat there feeling sorry for himself Darcy  spoke. "That's Thor," she said cheerfully oblivious to the turmoil inside him, she handed him another photograph. "He's Jane's boyfriend slash manservant slash God of Thunder." And Bucky breathed a sigh of relief as he saw in the next photo the same man, Thor, holding Jane, closer than he had held Darcy, kissing her. Both the photographs seemed to have been taken in the room they were currently sitting the sofa could be seen in the background.Then he stared at Darcy incredulously. "The God of Thunder?"Darcy smirked at him. "Later," was all she said and handed him another photograph. "These are Thor's Earthbound friends." The photo showed Thor standing holding his Hammer up high belting some sort of battle cry, beside him was a man who seemed to be in some sort of metal gold and red armor that encased him from head to toe, he was holding the helmet of the suit under his left arm while pointing his right hand at the camera a bluish circular glow seemed to be pulsing in the center of his armored palm, on Thor's other side stood a stunning redhead with a voluptuous figure armed with two lethal looking pistols, she would have been considered tiny especially standing next to the previous two men but the look on her face told him that she could probably give the two a good run for their money and that she was not someone to mess with, she was was the last person standing on the side of Thor, on the other end of the lineup was a man dressed in all black with muscular arms, a quiver of arrows strapped to his back and in his hand with an arrow notched and pointing down was a compound bow, behind them all standing over twelve feet tall was a vaguely man shaped thing which seemed to be made primarily of muscle, it's skin was a very angry looking green which seem to match it's mood because it looked very very pissed off. And standing in the center of this rag-tag group of strange people was Steve Rogers or more accurately Captain America.Bucky looked at Darcy in astonishment, Darcy didn't notice; she was pointing at the photo. "The Avengers," she said. And I think you recognize their leader or should I say Captain." Her voice was very smug. "Now do you really think that Captain America would associate with the boyfriend and friend of a HYDRA Agent? Yeah I didn't think so.""Steve's alive," Bucky asked his voice hoarse. As he had said before he never really thought they were HYDRA and he realized that if they weren't HYDRA then they wouldn't have a reason to lie to him about what year it was, there were certainly much more believable lies out there than the fact that he somehow time traveled into the next century. And if that was true then there was a very good chance that everyone he had known from back in his time were probably no longer living including Steve, he had never really managed to find much about the effects of the Super Soldier Serum on his friends body but as far as he knew immortality was not in the books pertaining to its effects. "How?"Jane piped up at this moment. "He was frozen in ice when he crashed a HYDRA plane in the Arctic ocean, Howard Stark went on expeditions for decades trying to find him but he was unsuccessful, but SHIELD never stopped searching for him even after Howard had died and two years ago they found him buried in ice and perfectly preserved. They thought he was dead and thawed him out to give him a proper burial, turns out as soon as his lungs thawed he started breathing again, apparently the serum allowed him to survive the crash and the freezing keeping him in a sort of cryogenic hibernation for over seventy years."Darcy scowled at her. "Not a fan girl, huh?"Jane had the decency to blush. "I was curious," was all she said."Mmhm," Darcy hummed nodding knowingly.Bucky was puzzled at the byplay but didn't inquire, instead he pointed to the rest of the group. "The Avengers?" he asked curious.Darcy nodded. "Couple months after Cap was thawed out Thor's brother Loki attacked SHIELD and stole the Cosmic Cube."Bucky sucked a sharp breath in at the mention of the Cube, so many lives had been lost because of that thing in his time and it seemed like it was still causing trouble."The Avengers were assembled to help recover it," continued Darcy choosing thankfully to ignore his gasp. "apparently they didn't get along very well at the beginning but when the shit hit the fan they were the ones who fought against the Alien Army that Loki summoned using the Cube and defeated them. They stopped Loki and saved the world, they're heroes."Bucky looked at Steve in the picture. "And Steve?" he asked Darcy. "How is he?" In the photo Steve's smile looked fixed, it reminded him of the photos he posed for back when he was boosting the Army's morale; it looked fake.Darcy shrugged. "To tell you the truth we don't really know," she replied her tone apologetic. "We've never met him, only Thor did and he left after helping them without contacting us."Bucky saw Jane's face fall as she mentioned Thor's actions, he chose not to say anything."To be fair though," Darcy said. "This is a press release photo of them, the Hulk behind them is photoshopped in.""Photoshopped?" asked Bucky looking at the large green thing, the look in its eyes sent shivers down his spine.""His photo was taken separately during the battle and the rest of the Avengers posed in a studio, they then used a computer to merge the two photos and this is what you get."Bucky nodded in understanding marveling at the handiwork, it looked completely authentic.Darcy shuffled through the stack in her hands and gave him another photo, this one was seemed to be of the Avengers again, well five of the Avengers and a man with lightly graying hair and  spectacles and a statuesque woman with strawberry blonde hair and a radiant smile, this was a more laid back photo with the team minus the Hulk relaxing in what looked like an apartment building penthouse suite, they were seated around in arranged couches and sofas, some of them like the man who had been wielding the Bow and Arrows was seated on the floor at the redheaded woman's feet while the tall strawberry blonde was seated in an armchair daintily holding a cocktail glass filled with some kind of blue liquid, the man in the metal suit was standing in the center holding a glass of what Bucky assumed was whiskey and making some sort of toast.

  
Steve and Thor were seated on one of the couches Thor had his arm boisterously around Steve pulling him close and holding up a large mug of what looked like beer in his hand while Steve was sporting a bashful but genuine smile raising his own glass which contained some kind of dark fizzing liquid. The Archer and the red head were both holding  glasses filled with clear liquid and while not smiling looked more at ease than they did in the previous picture. The man with the glasses was holding a cup of tea and was smiling gently at the group.

"This is from their Facebook page, that's a social network medium through which you can make friends, share pictures and news with anyone all over the world," explained Darcy. "It's a more laid back view of the team and this one shows the real Captain I think instead of the one he presents to the world."Bucky nodded. "That's more like the Steve I know," he looked at the photo for a while just staring at the group that Steve had surrounded himself with, he remembered a time when Steve had confessed to him that even with the Howling Commandos he didn't feel like he actually belonged, he cared about them and was honored that they thought of him as a leader but he knew that they saw him as a hero, as Captain America when he just wanted to be Steve Rogers, he had lamented that it seemed like it was always going to be Bucky and him against the world. It seemed like Steve had finally found a place where he belonged."You want to go to him," It wasn't a question. Bucky just nodded not looking up until Jane got to her feet."Well," she said walking towards the door. "I guess I need to make a few calls then."As she left Bucky looked to Darcy in curiosity. "Jane has high enough clearance to get into contact with Stark Industries and be actually taken seriously," she said promptly."Stark Industries?" he asked looking back down at the photo of the man standing in the center; he had thought the man's face looked familiar. "So that means..."Darcy nodded enthusiastically. "Howard Starks son Tony," she filled in for him. "he's a genius level engineer with multiple masters and PhDs, for most of his life he sold the government weapons until he was kidnapped by a terrorist organization and forced to make a weapon for them, Tony refused and made his first Ironman suit to escape from them, when he came back to the States he told the press that he had seen US soldiers being killed by his own weapons and he shut down the weapons division of Stark Industries, from then on he had started concentrating his efforts on providing clean energy, but he also decided to take down the terrorist who had gotten hands on his weapons, to that end he made the second and third Ironman suits and blew up their base of operations. Ever since then he has taken the front seat to seeing to America's defense and has immensely helped the war effort."Bucky looked at Darcy in wonder and a stab of jealousy at Howards son. "And you memorized his entire biography, did you?"Darcy shrugged unrepentantly at his jibe. "Didn't have to," she replied. "the man is a cultural and economical icon, not to mention a superhero, he's kind of hard to miss and mostly everyone who's anyone knows his story. He's also a bit of an ass though, Jane definitely hates him; more so now that he keeps on asking her to come work for him almost every week, Jane thinks the offer is only there because of her connection to Thor and she refuses to go corporate."Bucky raised an eyebrow at that but didn't comment, he didn't know anything about Jane's work or Stark's integrity to really bring forth an informed commentary on the subject, instead he looked back down at the photo and asked the question that he had been itching to ask ever since she gave it to him."So where's the large green..." he trailed off questioningly."The Hulk," said Darcy her eyes twinkling as if she has been waiting for this. "He's sitting right there drinking tea, didn't you notice?" she asked mischievously. Bucky gave her a calculating look and looked at the bespectacled man, out of all of them _he_ seemed to be the most composed, almost serene as he smiled benignly at his companions. He looked back up at her. "You have got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed in disbelief.Darcy shook her head grinning. "Nope, that's Dr Bruce Banner," she said bouncing in her seat a little. "he was involved in a lab accident that caused him to be exposed to lethal amounts of Gamma radiation."Bucky winced; he had been privy to a lot of inhuman experiments being performed on the POWs when he was captive and he remembered Zola experimenting with Gamma radiation along with a lot of other dangerous things. The results of those experiments were never pretty.Darcy nodded now a little subdued. "He could have died," she said softly. "most experts say he _should_ have died but instead now whenever he gets angry he turns into...""The Hulk," said Bucky nodding completing her unfinished sentence. "he can change back and forth between the two?"Darcy nodded. "But not always at will, and he can only barely control it, the... um... Other Guy, Jane says that when he involuntarily changes Bruce doesn't have any control, it's all Hulk. Jane is a huge fan of Dr Banners work, he's a biochemist with genius level IQ and he also holds three PhDs and an actual medical degree, ever since he came out of hiding Jane's been picking his brain on all sorts of research so she has a direct line to the Avengers.""So that's who she went to contact?" At Darcy's nod Bucky smiled gratefully and looked back down at the photo. "What about the rest of them," he asked her and settled back to listen to Darcy describe the rest of Avengers and their role in the Battle of New York while they waited for Jane to return.

* * *

Bruce was just setting up the last test tubes in the centrifuge to begin the DNA analysis of their new visitor in his reinforced lab two floors down from the penthouse."JARVIS, start the analysis and cross reference with existing samples of Agent Margaret Carter from SHIELDs medical records, also contact the Lisner Louise Dickson Hurt home and request a DNA sample and full medical records on the Margaret Carter residing there, give them the usual Stark Industries clearance and have them sign all the necessary NDAs this is level ten classified. _'As you wish Dr Banner, also Dr Foster is on hold for you from New Mexico, sir.'_ Bruce looked puzzled for a moment; Jane Foster tended to call on him at odd hours all the time but he didn't think there was any pending research he had for her, he shrugged maybe she wanted to consult on something else. "Put her through JARVIS," Jane was one of the few people, including Tony, who could keep up with him intellectually, considering she was half his and Tony's age spoke a lot about her potential, he always enjoyed his talks with the ever enthusiastic Dr Foster."Dr Banner," came Jane's voice through JARVIS' comm. "Hi, it's Jane.""Jane," Bruce replied. "It's good to hear from you again, and I told you its fine if you call me Bruce.""Uh, yeah okay Bruce," she said hesitantly."So what can I help you with today?" he asked being accommodating."Well, this isn't a research related call Bruce," she replied sparking his curiosity."Oh," he said. "Then is it about Thor?" he asked when he couldn't think of any other reason  for her calling him.

 

He heard her sigh and immediately regretted his question, in all the time that he had been communicating with her, not one time had Jane ever mentioned or inquired about Thor, he of course knew what Jane was to The Asgardian, mainly because all Thor talked about when not marveling over strange Midgardian customs was Lady Jane this and Lady Jane that and how Lady Jane was the most beautiful and intelligent woman in all of the nine realms, before he had left with Loki.

 

He would have gladly mentioned this to her if it weren't for that one time he called Jane for an update and her assistant/friend picked up, they got to talking and Darcy warned him that the fastest way to end a conversation with Jane these days was to mention even one word about Thor, she immediately clammed up and refused to say anything for hours. And yet here he was mentioning Thor to her when he had been told specifically not to.

"No, Bruce," she said her tone clipped. "It's not about him.""Sorry," said Bruce contrite, shaking his head at his own stupidity.Another sigh and then. "It's fine," she said eventually and continued. "I'm actually calling to talk to Captain Rogers, could you help me get in contact with him in any way?""Steve?" Bruce frowned growing concerned. "Jane what's this about?"Jane blew out a breath and said. "We... uh... found a man in the desert behind our lab. He... uh... claims to be Sergeant James Barnes of the Howling Commandos, only he barely looks thirty and he's missing an arm and he also wants to talk to Captain America..."Bruce listened to her recite all this with growing horror and when Jane's voice trailed off his heart rate monitor snapped him into action; he was almost at 75bpm, he took a couple of calming breaths and watched as the numbers receded slowly back towards 60 and spoke to Jane urgently."Jane whatever you do, do not approach him, he's a very dangerous man. Get as far away from him as possible and get help... ""Bruce, what are you talking about!" said Jane and Bruce closed his eyes begging for patience. "We've talked to him, he's a good guy, Darcy's with him in the next room, she's showing him pictures of the Avengers, he's Captain Rogers best friend...""Jane whatever story he's being telling you it doesn't matter; you can't believe him," replied Bruce. "JARVIS get me Tony," he said anxiously to the AI. "Jane, do you know anything about the Winter Soldier?"Yeah, he's supposed to be a ghost right? A super assassin? But Bruce what does this have to do with James, listen he says he's from... " But Bruce cut her off."Jane listen to me!" he nearly yelled his heart rate spiking once more. "Whatever he's told you is a lie, Steve met Bucky Barnes during the fall of SHIELD, Jane he was working _for_ HYDRA it's him Jane! Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier."

* * *

Jane felt the phone  drop from her grasp as she turned towards the room she had come from and realized that she had just left her best friend alone in the room with a killer.

 

**XKXKXKXKXK**

 


	9. The Bus at the Triskelion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> As he let go to allow her to open the door Natasha looked at him sternly. "You're still not allowed to die out there Rogers," she said to him. "because after that the only person allowed to kill you is me."
> 
> Steve nodded once more. "Yes ma'am." And both, ignoring the wide eyed Agent witnessing the weird scene, opened the door and ran out onto the roof to confront the new arrivals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From this chapter on-wards this story will feature a lot of events and characters from the Marvel TV Series - Agents of SHIELD; right now there will be spoilers from Season 1 of the series I do not think it will be hard to follow without having watched it but it would make much more sense if you did.

The new director of SHIELD looked out at the blue sky's and sighs. The events of the last few weeks had taken its toll on him, as much as he might think otherwise he was not as young as he once was, oh he was still on the upper side of fifty but only by a few years, the scar atop his heart itched and he might have gone to rub at it if he didn't fear triggering the pain from all the other bruises he had acquired in the fight he had been involved in.

Contrary to popular belief even Phil Coulson got hurt when being thrown around a room by a super powered being drugged up on synthetic alien blood.

 The fight with Garrett hadn't been more than 24 hours ago and he felt like shit. Coulson didn't dare take a moment to lie down though; he had gone into that compound determined to do what he needed to do to stop Garrett but he had walked out of the compound as Director of SHIELD and now he had more responsibilities than he ever had and only five people at his disposal, he needed to start recruiting for the Agency but as he turned around to face his desk he couldn't help but groan out a painful protest as the bruises on his stomach protested. 

He pressed the comms button to talk to the pilot. "May, how far are we out?"

"We'll be entering DC airspace in 90 minutes, sir." Came the answer through the comms.

"Thanks May," he replied. "Tell the team to get ready, we want to hit the ground running."

"Will do," said May and the feed cut off.

Coulson sighs once again and decides he's put it off long enough, he loosened his tie and pulls it off over his head, he unbuttoned his shirt and drapes it over the back rest of his chair and examines his torso in the mirror opposite his shelf of trinkets that he had glued down.

His entire upper chest is purple and blue and his right arm is almost black with bruising, it was the arm that Garrett had wrenched and then used to throw him almost fifteen feet across the room and into a wall.

Coulson reached into an upper desk draw and pulled out small tub of salve. It was one of Simmons inventions; an improvement on the pharmaceutical bruise remover with ingredients that big pharma couldn't even dream of acquiring, but it worked well enough.

He was just about to dab some on his chest when there was a knock and Skye entered the room without waiting for his permission and gasped at the sight of his bare and bruised torso.

Coulson, unknown to Skye, held a lot of admiration  for the young girl he had picked up on his first mission as part of the Bus. The woman was definitely attractive but aside from that it was her carefree attitude and the love of life and freedom of self that pulled at Coulson's heart strings and made him pay attention. She had grown in spades in the last few months, going from untrustworthy affiliate of the Rising Tide to an integral member of his team that he didn't believe would function half as well if she decided to suddenly up and leave.

It was a fear that Coulson had had these past few weeks as he watched her struggle to deal with the discovering of her past, being mortally wounded and then save by an alien drug, and then being made to care for a team member and soon realizing that that man was actually the enemy.

He knew that the rings around her eyes were getting darker; she was not getting enough sleep and it was taking its toll but still her sunny perception never diminished, she still had a sense of contentment around her as if she acknowledged that life was sometimes shitty but you didn't need to dwell on it too much, you could look at the brighter side of things and move forward. She didn't realize just how many cues he took from her in his way of living ever since she had come aboard.

He was pretty sure if it hadn't been for Skye then the revelations surrounding his resurrection would have had him in a rut that he doubted he would have gotten out of as soon  as he did and it all thanks to the young lady who was now staring at him with horrified tear filled eyes and her hand on her mouth trying to choke down a sob.

He never could stand her tears and so he tried to make light of the situation. "I don't look that bad, do I?" he asked nonchalantly trying not to be self-conscious about being half naked in front of the girl he was half inappropriately infatuated with and half genuinely cared about.

 "AC," she said softly walking inside and shutting the door behind her. She glanced at the door for a moment. "I'm sorry about barging in, I... I just... oh Coulson!" she let out in a whispered gasp.

 He supposed he should reprimand her for walking into a superior officers office without permission but he knew as well as anyone else on the plane that unless on a mission they were more of a family than a team of Agents and besides he could never bring himself to reprimand Skye; the only time he did was when he felt she truly deserved it and he admitted that a small part had been jealous of seeing her in Lydons arms; Mays surveillance of _that_ incident had been very thorough with video evidence and all, it was not something he liked to think about.

 "It's fine," he said shaking away thoughts of wringing Miles Lydons neck. "I was just about to apply Simmons' bruise remover but I guess it can wait," he put the tub down and went to his chair. "What did you want Skye?" he asked as he picked up his shirt.

 "Wait!" she let out as Coulson started to put on his shirt trying not to wince, he paused looking at Skye with one eyebrow raised.

 "I....umm....I could help," she said hesitantly and then gained confidence. "with the salve I mean. Those bruises look nasty AC and I'm sure you can't really apply it on yourself without any pain."

 Coulson got a brief image in his head of Skye's delicate fingers, so steadfast and sure on the keys of a keyboard, flitting across his skin and it sent a shiver down his back. He gulped. "I don't think that would be appropriate," he said gently not wanting to smart.

 Skye seemed unfazed. "It's just that Simmons has been giving me some help in first aid and stuff and I'm pretty sure I could help." She paused and looked at him earnestly and Coulson cursed mentally. "Please AC, let me help."

 Coulson shook his head ruefully; he never could refuse her.  He shrugged his shirt back off and picked up the the tub. "I admit," he said. "that there are places that I can't reach myself..."

 Skye snorted as she took the salve and opened the lid. "Is it any wonder? Jesus AC you're black and blue, of course you're not going to be able to reach all this," she pointed vaguely at the bruises. "God why didn't you say anything , Simmons could've..."

 "Simmons has got enough on her plate right now with Fitz, Skye I wouldn't have done her any good pointing out my own hurts, Fitz deserves her full attention."

 "You know if you weren't covered in bruises already then I would smack you," she replied. "You yourself said we were family and family doesn't hide it if their hurting from each other, Simmons would have wanted to know."

 Coulson bit his lip to stop himself from retorting that it went both ways, that she needed to talk about her hurts too, but Phil Coulson wasn't ever accused of being tactless so instead of taking the offensive he tried diplomacy.

 "I know, I'm sorry. I should've told Simmons but now what's done is done and I need to get this done before we land so..." he trailed off looking at her pointedly.

 Skye nodded. "Fine," she huffed. "Insincere apology accepted," she said tersely. "But just so you know _Director_  Coulson, as soon as we're back up in the air, I'm hauling your ass down to the med bay, is that clear."

 Coulson nodded solemnly trying and failing to keep a steady poker face.

 Skye scowled at him. "Now, d'ya want me to do your front or back first?"

 "Back?"

 Skye's eyes widened. "You seriously don't know that you have as much bruises, on your back as your front?"

 Coulson shrugged and said. "I thought there were a few but..."

 "Urgh," Skye grunted in frustration. "Turn around Coulson, just... just turn."

 Coulson decided to do as he was told and turned. He let out a quiet hiss though as Skye's fingers made contact with his skin, they were small, warm and slippery from the salve. Skye paused and muttered a pained apology stopping her movements.

 "It's okay," he said perfectly willing for her to believe that his exaltation was one of pain instead of pleasure as her hand touched his bare skin. "Just... just go slow," he said in a tense whisper. The air was charged with tension; Coulson felt that if he made one wrong move it would break and then there would be a whole lot of awkward to deal with so he kept quiet and silently reveled in her gentle, caring ministrations.

 His breath caught in his throat though as Skye leaned forward onto her tip toes to reach his shoulders unintentionally pressing her entire front to his back, he had bite back a moan and cursed his body; he was supposed to be in his yesteryear's, his body was not supposed to respond like this to a young woman's touch but he could not deny that ever since he had met Skye, ever since he had first touched her, no matter how innocently, there was a fire that was lit inside him and it grew brighter and brighter the more he got to know her.

 He let out the breath he was holding as Skye dropped back down onto her heels and tapped him on the shoulder telling him silently to turn around, perhaps she recognized the tension and didn't want to break it by speaking. He tried valiantly to keep his eyes off of her, tried to look at the table, the window, hell he even tried staring at his own two feet but still his eyes strayed to her.

 Skye to her credit never looked up from her task; meticulously and with great care applying the salve to his bruises and rubbing it in. He watched her eyes as they traveled up his torso and realized that her pupils were dilated and her breathing was almost labored, his breath hitched in response as he realized that he wasn't the only one affected by their closeness.

 Skye's fingers traced his scar and she splayed her hands atop his heart as if to ensure that he was in fact alive and then finally she lifted her eyes to his and they froze. It seemed as if time itself had frozen the moment their gaze met and they knew, at that moment they both knew that there was something between them that went further than friendship or camaraderie, _definitely_ further than the superior-subordinate relationship they presented to the world and until now they were both at a loss as to what to do with it.

 Until now. Their heads seemed to tilt out of their own accord; hers up and his down and they met in the middle their lips a hairs breadth apart, a final decision needed to be made. They both looked into each others eyes to see if they both really wanted this. Whatever they were looking for they found in the silent assurance of Coulson's eyes and in the restrained sparkle of Skye's and their lips met and then...

 "Sir, we're approaching the Triskelion ETA 10 minutes."

 They broke contact and groaned as May's voice blared through the speakers and Skye's forehead fell onto Coulson's shoulder in mortification, it was as though May herself had walked in the room and successfully cooled the growing temperatures of their bodies.

 Coulson let out an embarrassing chuckle and buried his hand in Skye's long brown locks. Skye soon pulled away just in time for May to let out another, "Sir? Phil?"

 Skye disengaged herself from Coulson and let him answer May.

 "Uh Yes, May thank you," he said watching as a red faced Skye tried to get away but he held on to her hand. Coulson pulled on her hand once and shook his head imploring her non-verbally not to go. Skye sighed and nodded her reluctant acceptance and he let go of her hand. "Any contact with the tower?"

 "None sir," replied May. "The tower seems to have taken a hit in any case sir, we have no way of contacting anyone down there."

 Coulson nodded. "Please inform the team," he continued on to May. "And tell Agent Triplett that we may meet some resistance, you and him will be taking point, ICERS only though, we're don't want to shoot friendlies, I'll meet the team down at the Communication Centre in five."

 "Yes, sir," said May and cut off the feed leaving a deafening silence in her wake.

 Skye twisted her hands together for moment and then seemed to decide to go for broke. "So... uh... _that_ happened," she let out a soft laugh that felt forced and died down too quickly.

 Coulson grabbed his shirt from his chair and started to put it on, being half naked was definitely not helping matters, he couldn't quite hide the wince this time but Skye was next to him in an instant pulling his shirt over his bruised frame and started to button him up. Coulson reached up and stilled her hands forcing her to meet his eyes. Her gaze was frightened but also hopeful, he imagined that he didn't look much better.

 "We can't ignore this Skye," he told her and watched as she swallowed nervously before nodding.

 "No," she said, her voice came out hoarse, wrought with tension. "No we can't."

 Coulson nodded and started buttoning up himself up watching Skye follow his hands in sure practiced motions, he tucked the shirt in his pants and tilted Skye's chin up, he leaned in waiting for her to push him away but she didn't and he closed the distance planting a soft kiss full of promise on her lips. He pulled back and found her watching him with a soft smile.

 He smiled back. "If we can't ignore it then we talk about it," he said to her as he picked up his tie and looped it around his collar. "Once we get back on board, okay?" Skye nodded and Coulson let out a relieved sigh that he hadn't ruined anything between them. "Alright then." He walked over to the door and opened it for her asking her to walk in front of him.

 As she reached the door though she snaked her hand around his still loose tie and pulled him in for a much more smoldering kiss than the last. "Sure we'll talk AC," she said as she pulled back. "But I hope that's not all you've got in mind."

 Coulson gulped as Skye walked down the stairs from his office and extra swing to her hips and he groaned. Just what had he gotten himself into this time. He shook thoughts of tempting brunettes from his mind, or tried to anyway, and descended the stairs after her. He had a mission to brief.

* * *

Guns were poised and aimed dead center at chests and their was complete utter silence on the Triskelion rooftop. Three ICERs against two SHIELD issued custom modified Glock G19 pistols and a Captain America with a Vibranium shield he had retrieved from where it had embedded itself in the concrete, behind them stood the Agent with his side arm drawn, almost vibrating with nervous energy but his hand was steady as he aimed at the new comers, overall Natasha thought they stood a pretty good chance at taking them on, that is until a voice called out from inside the Bus.

 "Hold your fire," it said and Natasha's ears picked up the voice loud and clear, it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up;  _she knew that voice_ , but instead of lowering her gun she tightened her grip as a figure descended the ramp of the Bus holstering his ICER, passing between the two Agents taking point and coming to stand in front of them, he signaled to the two Agents and they dropped their guns but didn't holster them, he raised his hands in an innocent gesture and spoke.

 "Hey Natasha, long time..."

 She took one step forward her gun still raised and spoke in a clear flat voice. "Who. The hell. Are you?"

 He just smiled a very familiar smile and said. "You know me Tasha," he said softly. Beside her Steve shifted restlessly.

 "Don't call me that," she said her voice cold; only _he_ called her that and _he_ was _dead_ , whoever this imposter was he was not going to disgrace her memory of him. "Phil Coulson is dead, whatever HYDRA trick you're using to impersonate him, it's not going to work. But," she smirked at the imposter; a deadly foreboding smirk, that would have made even Steve run for the hills if he wasn't on her side. "If you think you can hold your own against me _and_ Captain America then by all means..." she made a 'come at me' gesture, gun still in hand, and waited.

 Not-Coulson shook his head still smiling. "We have no intention of taking on the Black Widow _and_ Captain America and embarrassing ourselves, Tasha."

 "I don't know boss," said the heavy set black man behind Not-Coulson, a specialist by the looks of him. "I reckon I could take her."

 "Don't be stupid," said Not Coulson. "Romanoff would run rings around you Trip, she's called the Black Widow for a reason." He turned back to her. "Besides we're not here to fight with our own people."

 "Natasha," said Steve. "You know this guy."

 Natasha watched as Not-Coulson frowned at his words and responded. "He's an impostor, I used to know the guy he looks like, he was my SO and more importantly a close friend, he was killed almost a year ago."

 "It's true that Loki _did_ kill me Tasha," said Not-Coulson, his patient and completely unconcerned tone grating on her nerves, it reminded her forcefully of her early days in SHIELD and how patient Coulson had been with her. "Stabbed me right through the heart, but Fury brought me back."

 "Back from the _dead_?" asked Natasha her voice still cold but now with a sarcastic edge to it. "You've got to have a better story than that! At least a little bit more believable then apparent resurrection."

 Finally Not-Coulson seemed to lose his serene composure, he sighed and she tensed waiting for the attack but it never came, instead he spoke again this time in a dull almost apologetic tone. "December '99, The Rouge," and Natasha froze her green eyes locking sharply with his blues as he continued. "Something happened, something that made Barton break my jaw, something that we promised never to talk about again."

 Natasha's eyes widened as she looked at him in horror because suddenly there was no doubt in her mind, it _was him,_ it was Coulson because only three people knew about that incident and she knew that neither one of them had broken that promise to never mention it, not even to Fury.

 "Coulson?" she asked hoarsely her voice wrought with emotion.

 Coulson spread his hands his posture imploring. "It's really me Natasha."

 And before she knew it she had thrown a punch that landed straight on Coulson cheek sending him careening back into his Agents she heard someone let out an indignant shriek from somewhere inside the plane and watched with satisfaction as Coulson clutched his jaw in pain.

 "Nice to see you too," he said with a little effort standing up straight again and adjusting his tie. He didn't call attention to the bruise now forming on his left cheek. "Well that went as well as exp-"

 He didn't get to finish his sentence as a black and brown blur shot past him and managed to somehow, despite her enhanced speed and agility, sock Natasha in the jaw.

 "Skye!" yelled out Coulson. "No."

 'Skye' didn't listen to him as Natasha watched with a sense of morbid fascination as the slip of a girl in some sort of tactical gear pulled back her fist for another punch. The Black Widow is known on the rare occasion to be caught unawares, but never twice in as many minutes and as this 'Skye' pulled back her second punch, her form totally off, she prepared herself to deliver a world of hurt when...

 "Skye," said Coulson once more and pulled the girl back before she could try and hit Natasha again. "Skye. Skye, stop."

 "Let me go, AC," she spat out glaring at Natasha. "She has no right to hit you."

 "Actually Skye, she does."

 That answer took all the fight out of the girl and she stared at Coulson incredulously.

 "AC no," she said in a half whisper. "That was Fury, all of it was Fury and you're already hurt as it is."

 "Be that is it may Skye, it was also my choice not to contact the Avengers and that's on me."

 Skye nodded subdued but then turned back to Natasha and the fire was back in her eyes. "You lay one finger on him again and I'll..."

 Natasha raised an eyebrow at her. "You'll what?" she laced her question with mocking laughter. "I barely felt that hit you just snuck in." Which wasn't entirely true but _she_ didn't need to know that.

 Skye's glare intensified "I may not be able to fight you," she said fiercely. "But I hacked into SHIELD from my van with a laptop I won from a bet, believe me I can make life hell for you."

 Natasha's eyebrow didn't twitch but she tried not to smile, the girl had fire in her that's for sure and she played to her strengths and she didn't get cowed by the fear of the Black Widow, she'll have to keep an eye on this 'Skye' she seemed to be an interesting one.

 "Skye," said Coulson once more in reprimand and turned to Natasha.  "Tasha she won't do anything of the sort." He pulled Skye back behind him while she scowled heavily at her.

 Natasha raised her eyebrow again this time at Coulson. "I don't think that's going to be your call," she turned to Skye. "Don't worry, unless Coulson gives me a reason I'm not going to hit him again." Skye seemed to lose some of her glower but the look she was giving him was definitely not friendly.

 As usual, even though he was not the Steve she knew, it was Cap who decided to defuse the situation. "Look from what I gather none of us are enemies, am I right?" When all of them, even Skye, reluctantly nodded Cap took charge. "Alright then, I think we should all," and he looked meaningfully at Natasha. "Put our guns away and talk like civil people okay?" Another series of nods followed slow holstering of weapons with two identical Glocks being the least to be sheathed.

 "Okay then," said Natasha. "Coulson you're alive and what else? Why did you come here? You must know that this facility is no longer functional."

 "It's Director Coulson now, actually."

 The correction didn't actually come from him but from one of his Agents; the one still standing in the shade of the plane with her face partially hidden but once she said her words she stepped forward and Natasha's lips stretched  into a thin line.

 "May?" she asked her surprise lasting for only a second before her lips curved into a rare smile.

 "Romanoff." May stated with a nod.

 And for the first time since the Bus had landed on Triskelion, Natasha actually relaxed; it was because she knew without a doubt that it was Melinda May standing in front of her, she guessed it was because she was a warrior just like Natasha; they had trained together and fought together; a lot of her early days missions at SHIELD overlapped with Mays and she had been there for the aftermath of Bahrain, she had no doubt that HYDRA had technology that could successfully mimic a person's appearance, hell _SHIELD_ had one of those, but there was no one who could mimic the way May held herself, moved and functioned, that came from years of experience at being Melinda May and Natasha knew that Mays loyalty to SHIELD could never be in question; she didn't have any emotional ties for an Incentives Program to coerce her and she was honorable to a fault.

 It sometimes caused friction between members in her team because she was first and foremost loyal to the Director, it was a little similar to the relationship between Hill and Fury; they both might question Fury's actions but never his orders, and they would never betray him or SHIELD.

 "You should have come forward before May, all this," she indicated Coulson and Skye. "wouldn't have been necessary."

 "Then it wouldn't have been as entertaining as it was," was her tacit reply with no hint of amusement in her tone and yet she made Natasha want to crack up laughing.

 "That's true," relied Natasha with a straight face, she turned back to Coulson. "You never said why you were here _Director_ Coulson, I'm assuming we have Fury to thank for that?"

 Coulson nodded. "It's not a very welcome position given Fury's involvement in my resurrection, but I figure the rebuilding of SHIELD is bigger than the both of our egos."

 Natasha smirked at him. "Don't let Fury hear you say that, he might take offense." And just like that they were back to that familiar relationship that Natasha valued and had thought she had lost forever when Fury had told them about Coulson's 'death'.

 Coulson then decided to answer her other question. "We came here to look for specs on a cloaking device," he said. "kind of like the ones on the Helicarrier and the Quinjets, even though our main weapons and tech engineer is currently out of commission, we figured that the Triskelion might have some data for us, we actually expected this place to be abandoned, at least that's what Fury told me."

 "For the Bus?" she asked nodding towards the GlobeMaster.

 Coulson nodded. "Yeah a lot more people recognize this Bus than we'd like," he replied. "Talbot has actually ordered it to be shot down  if sighted so we're looking to hide plain sight, at least until we can rebuild enough to get negotiations going with the Pentagon again. As long as we're labeled as terrorists though, we need to lay low."

 Natasha turned back towards the Agent who was by now just completely confused not knowing what to think. "Agent today is your last day is that right?" he nodded with certainty. "Good, then if you want to retire with no hiccups then forget all that you saw and heard here after you get Director Coulson's team what they require, clear?" he nodded again shaking slightly under her scrutiny, she nodded back satisfied and turned back to Coulson.

 He smiled back at her and nodded at the girl beside him. "Skye has the requirements with her," he shared a significant look with the girl and urged her to go with the Agent. Skye nodded and after casting Natasha a withering look moved off to follow the Agent back down the stairs.

 "You trust him?" he asked Natasha indicating the stairwell leading down.

 "No," she answered honestly.

 Coulson nodded. "Skye can take care of herself but," he turned to the specialist. "Ghost them, keep your distance but once Skye's done escort her back to the Bus." He nodded a "Yes, boss," and went after the two.

 "A little protective are we, Coulson?"

Coulson nodded definitively. "I think we all can safely say that Skye is a very important member of our team. We almost lost her once, we're not prepared to risk her again."

Natasha looked to May in surprise, Melinda May was famous for keeping it business only, there was no place for attachments for her on a mission but Natasha saw that she didn't refute Coulson's claim, in fact she thought she detected a hint of approval of his statement. Skye was _definitely_ interesting now.

She looked to Coulson again. "You planning to loiter."

Coulson shook his head. "Just grab and go," he said. "Why you need a ride?"

She looked towards the gate of the Triskelion and frowned; there were reporters everywhere with news vans and TV cameras pointed straight at the building, not that way then. Besides all her plans for the day was canceled as soon as the second Captain America fell into the river.

"Yeah," she answered. "So does he." She nodded at Steve.

Coulson's face lit up as he finally had a reason to look at Steve. "Captain Rogers, it's an honor working with you again, sir. I'm sorry for the deception concerning my death, I assure you that I played no part in it except not informing the Avengers of my still alive condition as soon  as possible." He said all this very fast in his rare fan boy tone before Natasha could stop him.

Steve gave Natasha a bemused look but still shook Coulson's offered hand. "The honors mine Director _Coulson_ , is it?"

Coulson's eyes widened at his response. "Oh no sir, Phil is fine or Coulson which ever, that's fine."

May actually snorted at that and shook her head exchanging amused looks with Natasha. "Skye would hate to have missed this."

And Natasha had to shake her head at that, a lot had changed. She decided to break up Coulson's nervous rant about losing his collection of Vintage Captain America trading cards before getting him to sign it the last time they met and clear the air.

"Coulson, Steve isn't," she paused trying to find the words." he isn't the Captain America you met during the Avengers Initiative."

And Coulson and May looked at her in confusion. "What?"

So Natasha told them of the events of the last two hours in detail deciding to omit the kiss and her feelings on _that_ in the recount, once she was done they both looked at Captain America in shock.

"You're kidding me," said May. "You're telling me that somehow you _time traveled_ into the future?"

 Steve shrugged a little nervous under May's sharp eyes. "I...uh... I think so," he said nodding.

 "Impossible," she said immediately.

 Natasha nodded. "Yeah but last I checked it was impossible for a man to come back from the dead as well." she looked pointedly at Coulson, who weirdly had gone completely slack faced. "Coulson?" she asked hesitantly. He mumbled something that was hard for her to hear. "What? Coulson what did you say?"

 "Two Captain America's?" he whispered breathlessly and Natasha winced. "Natasha are you really telling me that we now have not one but two Captain America's here in the same century?"

 Natasha nodded. "That's what I said," she confirmed.

 And she startled as a grin spread across his face in unholy glee and he said in a strangled whisper that nevertheless carried to their ears. "HYDRA won't know what hit them." 

**XKXKXKXKXK**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't really know how well the Skoulson would go down but I am comfortable with that pairing, its less cliche to me then Philinda or FitzSimmons and definitely better than SkyeWard. Hope you enjoyed and please comment; they help me so much. 'Til next time.


	10. Reunions and Repercussions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "Jane listen to me!" he nearly yelled his heart rate spiking once more. "Whatever he's told you is a lie, Steve met Bucky Barnes during the fall of SHIELD, Jane he was working for HYDRA it's him Jane! Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier."
> 
> Jane felt the phone drop from her grasp as she turned towards the room she had come from and realized that she had just left her best friend alone in the room with a killer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys sorry about the longer than usual delay, a fanfiction, The Child of the Storm, introduced me to the Dresden Files and I was intrigued enough to read it and once I started I couldn't stop reading. So the last month has been spent reading the entire 15 book series of Jim Butchers masterful work, for anyone interested in Adventure and Fantasy novels telling a story about a noir detective/wizard operating in present day Chicago with an amazing and scary supernatural world to boot then you might not want to miss out on this series. The ebooks are a definite read but if you can get your hands on it then the audiobooks narrated by James Marsters are probably the best auditory experience you could ask for. Expect some Dresden Files fanfiction in the future from me. Also if you're interested in reading The Child of the Storm, a massive crossover fanfiction with the two main universes being the MCU and Harry Potter then that is over at fanfiction.net definitely recommended. Now after that ridiculously long note on to the chapter...

Tony watched as Peggy held the phone to her ear and spoke. "H-Hello? Steve? Hi... uh... it's... uh... it's me," she said in a shaky voice and then she gasped covering her mouth with her hand as tears filled her eyes and she pulled the phone away from her ear and handed it to him. "I can't... Tony please." and Tony nodded taking the phone from her, he understood, it was only a few weeks ago that he had seen Pepper fall to her death. Losing the person you love most in the world is devastating but the overwhelming relief at finding out that that person is still alive is even more powerful, it takes a while to really sink in.

He put the phone to his ear and spoke. "Cap, it's Tony," he said briskly.

"Stark? If this is some sick idea of  joke... " came the reply and Tony immediately cut him off.

"Cap, I may be a lot of things but cruel isn't one of them," his tone was a little heated at Caps insinuation.

Peggy, surprisingly, put a calming hand on his upper arm and he nodded to her reigning in his ire.

"So it really is  _her?"_  came Caps voice laced with wonder and disbelief.

"Yes it is," replied Tony. "I woke up and found her unconscious on my landing pad, she said that the last thing she remembers is," and Tony paused realizing that Peggy hadn't actually mentioned the last thing she remembered before being transported into the future, he resisted the urge to slap himself upside the head, that was time travel 101 and he had forgotten about it.

Peggy nodded at Tony's pointed look and took a deep breath. "Tell him the last thing I remember is coming back from The Stork Club, my date was a no show," she said her voice steady despite the anguish he could see in her eyes. "Then I woke up in your penthouse."

Tony relayed all of this information to Steve and listened as his breath caught. "Oh my god," said Steve. "Tony tell her I'm on my way." And he disconnected.

Tony looked at the phone for a moment and then shared an amused look with Pepper who had observed the whole altercation while checking up on Stark Industries portfolios, he frowned at that; they were supposed to be on vacation. But before he could say anything to Pepper, or Peggy for that matter, JARVIS piped up.

_'Sir, Dr Banner requests your presence in the lab, he is most distraught.'_

His eyes widened as did Peppers; Bruce  _distraught_  was not a trivial thing, but before they could take one step towards the lab Bruce burst into the room looking frantic, Tony and Pepper immediately went into damage control; getting close enough to him to console him but not close enough to touch, they found out that was a bad idea the hard way.

"Bruce," said Pepper in a calm voice. "Bruce what's wrong?"

Bruce closed his eyes, took in three long deep breaths and the beeping from his heart monitor stopped. He opened his eyes and said, "I'm fine, fine."

Tony nodded and looked to Pepper who was the best at talking to Bruce when he was under pressure. Pepper took the hint and moved to his right taking his hand she guided him to one of the sofas sitting beside him and rubbing his back. "What's going on Bruce?" she asked softly.

"The," he swallowed and then powered through. "The Winter Soldier, he's in New Mexico with Jane Foster..."

Tony snapped to attention. "JARVIS."

_'At once, sir.'_

"Bruce you up for this?" he asked the biochemist. "The Soldier can match Cap blow for blow but he'll have a hard time fighting you."

Bruce nodded and got up about to head for the door when he was stopped by Peggy.

Tony had seen Peggy observe all the commotion caused by Bruce and his apparent freak out silently and he knew that there were probably a lot of things that had confused her but he didn't think now was the time to explain the Hulk to her.

"Aunt Peg," he said as Bruce just stared at her.

"Tony," said Peggy in a patient voice that reminded him of when she used to reprimand him when he was being particularly difficult. "The man obviously couldn't handle the news of this 'Soldier' near this Jane, he was so distraught, and now you expect him to fight a man who you said is just as powerful as Steve?"

Bruce looked at Tony amused for a second and then sidestepped Peggy and walked out. Tony took Peggy by the elbow and directed her to sit. "I said the Soldier could match Cap blow for blow but what I didn't say is that the Soldier has been through rigorous and inhumane training, he's a killing machine and in a fair fight he would most probably flatten Cap and that's without counting his bionic arm that has a few tricks of its own. But you don't know Bruce and I don't have time to explain him to you, I'll leave that to Pepper and when we get back I'll answer any questions you have. For now though... " he looked at the ceiling. "JARVIS?"

_'Ready, sir.'_

Tony nodded. "Deploy."

The door to the landing pad opened and he stepped out looking back at Pepper. "Honey," he said and Pepper walked up to him to plant a soft kiss on his lips. 

"Come back in one piece Tony," she said smiling wistfully.

"I promise I'll try," he said solemnly. "Keep Aunt Peg company, I'm going to have to head Cap off at the entrance, we need him for this one; he's the only one that can get through to the Soldier to some extent."

Pepper nodded and stepped back. They didn't do bold declarations of love, that seemed too much like goodbye and a little corny so they kept to slight touches and meaningful glances.

Tony walked forward and stepped into the boots and walked up the ramp as the suit assembled around him and as he turned around on the pad to look at them again he couldn't help but smirk at the look of awe on Peggy's face.

"Tell Hill to get a Quinjet ready and pick up Banner, I'll bring Cap aboard," at Peppers nod he activated thrusters and shot into the air and then straight down the side of his building landing on one knee with a fist on the ground in front of a hasty Captain America.

"Tony," said Cap approaching him. "Where is she?"

His face was alight with joy and he was dressed in slacks and a plaid shirt with his classic brown leather jacket, he was holding in his hand a bouquet of roses and a bunch of letters in the other, he looked like he was holding back a wide unrestrained grin, Tony had never seen the man so happy and he hated himself for doing this.

"She's in the penthouse with Pepper," Tony said lifting his visor to talk to him, Cap nodded and walked to move past him but Tony put a hand on his chest to stop him. "Wait a minute Cap, there's something we've got to do first."

Cap's smile lost its color. "Tony if Peggy is in there then I need to be there, I haven't seen her in over two years, nothing is more important right now than me being in the same room as her," he shoved Tony's metal arm aside and walked up to the front entrance, Tony didn't turn around.

"Even Barnes?" he asked, engaging his rear camera to gauge his reaction. Cap had frozen, his hand on the door handle.

 _"What?"_ he said.

"Barnes, the Winter Soldier," he clarified. "Is meeting her more important than getting Barnes? Because we just found out that he is  _alone_  in a SHIELD lab in New Mexico with two  _defenseless_  civilians, one of who is Point Breaks girlfriend."

"Jane Foster?" Cap like Tony had heard enough of the beautiful Lady Jane from Thor to last them a lifetime.

"Uh huh," Tony said turning around.

"My intel puts him nowhere near New Mexico," Cap said facing him.

Tony gave him a look. "Your  _intel_  also doesn't put him anywhere else on the planet either does it?"

Cap reluctantly nodded. "We need you on this, Cap. If anyone can get through to Barnes it's you." Tony felt like shit when he saw Cap's shoulders slump but it was also the go ahead he needed to call Hill.

"JARVIS, get me Hill."

_'Yes sir.'_

"And have someone come out and take Captain Rogers gifts up to the Penthouse," he said as an after thought.

_'Of course, sir.'_

Tony walked up to Cap and stood beside him watching as he handed over the roses and the letters and turned back to him. Two handles moved out of the suit on either side of Tony's shoulder blades and Cap grabbed on while Tony kicked in the thrusters and they flew to the roof where Hill was waiting in the pilot seat of the Quinjet with Bruce at the ramp waiting for them.

"Dr Banner," Cap said and Tony knew he was fully aware that Peggy was sitting waiting for him just a floor below and yet he walked into the plane resolutely greeting Hill as he went.

"Captain," said Hill and then looked to Tony. "Sir, once this is over I have some confusing communications from Agent Romanoff that I need to run by you."

Tony nodded, Romanoff sending weird messages was nothing  new, the Winter Soldier in a SHIELD lab with two defenseless civilians,  _that_  took precedence. On that note he decided to fill everybody in or have Bruce fill them in seeing as he himself had no idea what the hell was going on.

* * *

"And his hand shot up to hold the Hammer and the sky begin to darken," came Darcy's excited voice as Jane walked back into the room, she saw Darcy glance at her absently and turn her attention back to James whose attention never wavered from Darcy's animated face. Jane faltered; he didn't _look_ like a killer, she had no illusions that he had killed people in the war but he just didn't feel like the assassin she had heard stories about, the Winter Soldier.

"You  had to be there," Darcy was saying. "Muscles stood up Mew Mew in his hand and out of nowhere these pieces of metal, his armor, started assembling on his hands..."

Jane shook her head, whether he looked it or not she wasn't going to take chances with Darcy's life. She approached the table where the SHIELD lockbox sat open and faced it turning her back to them and picking up one of the pistols, she hesitated over the choice of magazines and noticed that Darcy had stopped speaking.

"Jane?" she asked her. "What did Dr Banner say?" Jane closed her eyes for a moment and seriously considered picking up the lethal bullets but recognized that she wouldn't have the nerve to pull the trigger if she loaded _that_ magazine, she lifted up the ICER magazine and loaded it the click of the magazine locking registered loudly in the silent room, she could feel the tension settle over them.

"Jane?" Darcy asked again as Jane clicked off the safety and closed the lock box turning the key to lock it and turning around the gun raised.

"Jane!" yelled out Darcy leaping to her feet with Barnes the photos in their laps fluttering to the ground as they stood. "What the hell!"

"Darcy get behind me," she said in a tense whisper as she leveled the gun at Barnes.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is in your head," said Darcy defiantly. Jane watched with increasing incredulity as she stepped in front of Barnes her hands crossed under her breasts.

Barnes' voice rang out in slight panic. "Darcy," he said. "what are you doing?"

Darcy didn't look back at him. "What does it look like I'm doing?" she shot back and glared at Jane.

"He's dangerous Darcy," Jane said her voice anxious, she didn't want to shoot Darcy but Barnes was behind her and he could any moment decide to hurt her. "If you had heard what Bruce said to me about him..."

"Then tell us what he said," Darcy said refusing to budge even as Barnes tried to push her out of the way. "instead of trying to shoot him."

"Darcy you've only known him for a few hours," said Jane exasperated. "You can't trust him."

"Uh, yes I can," she replied. "He's given us no reason to distrust him, he could have tased me back there easy, he could have taken out both of us but he didn't, that gun that you pulled on us has been lying open in full view of him for ages but he didn't make a grab for it he's been sitting beside me listening to me blab on and on and I didn't feel threatened not once, whatever Banner told you Jane it's wrong, Buckys _not_ dangerous."

Jane shook her head. "He's the Winter Soldier Darcy," Jane almost yelled her hand shaking at the idea of how much danger they really were in right now. "Do you get that? He's a HYDRA assassin."

Darcy raised her eyebrows at that. "Okay, Jane I think you've finally gone round the bend," she said rolling her eyes. "You know how stupid that sounds? Captain America's best friend a HYDRA assassin?"

Jane's eyes widened as, in a sudden movement, Barnes was in front of Darcy essentially switching positions. Now he was the one protecting her, his arm was raised in a surrendering gesture and he easily blocked Darcy from view.

"Jane," he spoke clearly his eyes imploring. "I don't know who the Winter Soldier is but I _know_ I'm not a HYDRA assassin, I don't know what Dr Banner said about me but I will not let Darcy come to harm because of me. If you want to shoot me then go ahead but you and Dr Banner are both mistaken."

He waited as Darcy tried to push past him but he wasn't going to be easily moved. Jane so badly wanted to believe him, his eyes seemed so honest but she looked from Darcy's stricken face to Barnes imploring one and steeled herself. "I'm sorry," she said genuinely apologetic. "But I can't take the risk."

Barnes nodded once resigned and their was a horrified scream from Darcy but Jane had already pulled the trigger. Two shots hit Barnes; one to the chest another to the head and he went down in a heap with Darcy rushing to him and falling to her knees.

"Oh my god Jane," she screeched. "What did you do?!"

Jane walked up to them the gun at her side and her knees weak. "He's not dead Darcy," she said as she collapsed on the couch her head in her hands at the thought of what she just did. "I hit him with ICERs."

"Twice," said Darcy as she checked his pulse. "You shot him twice Jane, that's an almost lethal dose."

"He's a super soldier," she said her voice shaky. "He wasn't going to die."

Darcy's eyes flashed. "You didn't know that for sure Jane." she looked down at the weapon still in Jane's hand and raised an eyebrow at her. "What you're going to shoot me too?"

Jane looked up horrified. "Darcy no, I - I would never," she stuttered shaking her head.

Darcy gave her a skeptical look. "Then throw that gun away,"  she said. "You've done enough damage with it."

Jane flinched at her tone but didn't toss the weapon. "H-He could still wake up," said Jane warily, the look in Darcy's eyes unsettle her, she recognized hurt and disbelief there and felt her gut twist.

"Toss. The gun. Now." said Darcy enunciating each word.

Jane realized that her actions now would decide the future of their friendship and decided to do as she said; switching on the safety tossing the gun away from them.

"I'm sorry, Darcy. I'm sorry I had to shoot him," she said desperately. "but Bruce said..."

"I heard what Bruce said," snapped Darcy her voice sharp, Jane had never seen Darcy assert herself like this before. "What I don't get is why you didn't stop when I said he wasn't dangerous."

Jane sighed. "Darcy," she said slowly choosing her words carefully. "It's a little obvious that you were..." she trailed off not wanting to say it.

Darcy scowled. "That I was what?" she asked testily. "That I was crushing on him?" she snorted. "That's funny because I remember when you were willing to open a portal to another realm for the man that _you_ were crushing on and not once did I say that you were mad, that this was a fools errand like Erik so often said, I stood by you Jane because I trusted you, but I guess I'm just too dumb to know right from wrong next to the 'Great Dr Foster', am I?"

Jane watched as tears spilled down Darcy's cheeks as she looked away from Jane and down at Barnes swiping her hand at them and sniffling, Jane's stomach fell out from under her and she dropped down next to Darcy and took her hand that wasn't on Barnes' chest in hers. "Darcy no!" she said. "You have no idea how much you mean to me, I... I... all I could think about when Bruce told me about James, was that I had left you in the room alone with a killer, Darcy I swear everything I did was to make sure you didn't get hurt! I was terrified that that was a possibility and I... I," Jane struggled for the words, she wasn't good at making her feelings clear, science and theories were fine but saying what was in her heart was difficult but she had to power through; her relationship with Darcy wasn't one she was willing to risk because of her lack of social skills.

Darcy had stopped sniffling and was looking at Jane with a closed off expression which grew to surprise as Jane reached up her hand and wiped her tears saying. "Darcy I love you like a sister, and I couldn't stand the thought of you being in danger like that. Bruce said that Captain Rogers had met Bucky Barnes during the fall of SHIELD, he said that Barnes was working for HYDRA, that he had been the Winter Soldier and all I could think about was your safety."

Darcy frowned. "Why didn't you just say that instead of pulling the gun on us?"

"I couldn't take the risk, if he thought he was cornered; Darcy you have no idea how many deaths have been attributed to the Winter Soldier, he makes what Loki did in New York feel like a child's tantrum, I couldn't risk you life. I'm sorry if you thought I didn't trust you but if the alternative of you being angry with me is your death then I'll take your anger any day, you're too important to me to lose Darcy."

* * *

Darcy tried to stay angry at Jane but dammit she had long ago given up on having the kind of affection she held  for the single minded astrophysicist be reciprocated that she couldn't help but feel elated at the revelation that Jane actually did care about her more than just an assistant or intern. And she was right; Darcy could feel Buckys steady heartbeat under her palm, he wasn't hurt just unconscious.

Finally she relented as she saw Jane start to fidget. "I love you too, you know? But I still don't agree with the way you went about securing my safety," she huffed. "I mean Jane did you forget that Bucky just traveled seventy years into the future and he's already enhanced, it's more than possible that Captain Rogers met the Bucky Barnes from _our_ time who _might_ be a HYDRA Soldier, not _this_ Bucky. Jane trust me this time, Bucky is not a danger to us."

Jane thought about that for moment. "I suppose that's possible but that would mean he somehow stopped aging..."

Darcy shrugged. "Not the first time someone has managed to look the same seventy years later," she said. "Besides if Captain America's best friend was a HYDRA super soldier then that means he was somehow brainwashed into thinking us as the enemy, because even you know that Bucky would never willingly turn, and we already know that Bucky isn't brainwashed, he knows who he is and where he's from, I doubt our world's Bucky knows those things."

She looked to Jane to see her nodding at her theories and then shake her head. "Well it doesn't matter, I mean it does matter if I shot the wrong guy," she amended hastily as Darcy scowled at her again. "but he's going to be knocked out for at least an hour in which time the Avengers will be here to see if James is the Winter Soldier or not."

Darcy's expression looked to be one of half horrified and half fan girlish. "You called the Avengers _here_?"

Jane shook her head no. "Well I have to assume that Bruce would get news as soon as possible to Stark or Rogers that The Winter Soldier is here and they would have no choice but to come."

"How long do you think....?" Darcy's questions was cut short by a loud knocking on their front door and the electronically amplified voice of Tony Stark blared out.

**_"James Barnes, we do not want to fight, let Dr Foster and Miss Lewis go and we can talk."_ **

Darcy looked at Jane and rolled her eyes. "You called them, you can handle them, I'm staying with Bucky," and she shifted Bucky's head to her lap combing her fingers gently through his close cropped hair.

She saw Jane get up and stared at  the two on the floor for a moment before she turned picking up the ICER pistol and walked toward the front door.

* * *

The Quinjet ran at Mach 15 speeds thanks to modifications made by Tony. The trip from New York City to New Mexico, pushing it's maximum speed and traveling just below the Stratosphere, allowed them to make it in just over fifteen minutes, the cloaking activated as they reached 50,000ft and they landed silently behind the lab in Puente Antiguo.

Tony and Cap disembarked the jet while Bruce remained behind in comms waiting to see if he would be needed.

Cap knocked on the door while Tony put his voice on speaker trying to get Barnes to give up. They waited for a minute and just as they were getting ready to breach, the door opened and out walked Dr Jane Foster her hands in the air.

"Hi guys," she said wincing a little at the trained guns and repulsors all pointing at her. "Everything's fine here, Barnes had been neutralized.

Tony saw Caps eyebrows rise. "Neutralized?" he asked Foster. "By who?"

Jane worried her bottom lip for a moment before reaching behind her an pulling out a pistol. Tony tensed before realizing she was pointing the barrel towards the sky. "Umm... by me," she said looking a little sheepish. "I used ICERs though, so he's alive, just... uh... just knocked out."

"JARVIS, check if we're dealing with the real Jane Foster and not an LMD or face mask because this does not sound like the same Jane Foster that told me to go screw myself when I tried to offer her a job."

_'Sir, facial and retinal scans revealed 99.98% match to Dr Jane Foster.'_

"Well that's that then."

"I think you guys should come in," she said. "If Dr Banner is with you then he should come too, I kind of shot him twice and Darcy's worried."

Almost immediately the ramp lowered and Bruce walked out his medical bag in tow. He passed by Tony and Cap without a word and stopped in front of Jane. "I told you to run." he said succinctly. Jane gave a guilty shrug and Bruce sighed. "Where is he?" Jane entered the lab guiding the doctor to his patient.

Tony glanced at Cap and with a silent agreement they followed.

* * *

Steve walked in behind Dr Banner, he was jittery; excited and nervous at the same time, it wasn't long ago that he had seen Bucky but that wasn't Bucky; that was the Winter Soldier and the Winter Soldier scared the bejeezus out of him, he realized early on when facing him that he had no chance. He was just too unpredictable, to emotionless and too _good_ in the worst way, it was only when he was able to get through to Bucky that he got the upper hand, basically he played dirty, exploited The Soldiers one weakness; Bucky.

He entered the room to see Banner looking down at a still form in confusion, the still form in question had his head in the lap of a dark haired girl with a voluptuous figure and a sharp cautious gaze, Steve got the distinct image of a lioness protecting it's cub.

"Miss Lewis," said Banner.

"Dr Banner," Miss Lewis replied her tone neutral until her eyes landed on Steve and widened.

"Holy hell! The Avengers are standing in our living room," she said breathlessly.

"Not all of us," piped up Tony. "How you doing kid."

"As well as can be Mr Stark."

"You two know each other?" Steve asked registering the byplay.

"We've talked over the phone," said Tony. "She has a vast vocabulary some of which is very inventive and colorful, and she apparently makes a very good pillow."

And that was his cue, Steve steeled himself and glanced down at the head in Miss Lewis' lap and frowned; something seemed different about him, he knelt down beside Bucky and reached out hesitating to touch him.

"Jane where is his arm?" said Bruce kneeling down on Bucky's other side and checking his pulse.

That's what seemed different, his bionic arm was missing but it didn't seemed to be all that was different, there was something else.

"I told you over the call," replied Jane. "He was missing an arm when we found him."

Bruce shook his head as he took out a stethoscope. "The Winter Soldier had his left arm replaced with a bionic arm a long time ago Jane, when you said he was missing an arm I assumed that you were talking about his prosthetic."

Bruce glanced at the stump. "Who wrapped him up?"

Miss Lewis raised her hand and Bruce nodded. "Good job," he said. "But I need you to unwrap him now, can you do that while I check his heart?"

She nodded and slowly began to unravel the bandages while Bruce pressed the stethoscope to his lungs and heart listening intently and eventually straightened up.

"He'll be fine," Banner declared shifting around to look at Buck's stump and frowned again.

"This scar tissue looks barely a week old," he murmured in disbelief.

"Actually it's only a few hours old Bruce," said Jane. "It was bleeding when we found him but healing very fast, by the time we got him patched up the wound was more or less healed."

"Dr Banner," said Steve noticing something else. "When I saw the Bucky the last time his bionic arm included his shoulder." Steve nodded to Buckys stump. "His shoulder is still intact."

"And that's what I've been telling Jane!" said Miss Lewis. "What Bucky's been telling us,"  she looked at Steve. "Cap this Bucky is not your Winter Soldier. Bucky said he ended up in the desert behind our lab after he had awaken from a fall," Steven eyebrows furrowed at that. "A fall from a train," she continued. "A fall of over 500ft." Steve's eyes widened. "Sound familiar?" she asked rhetorically.

"Impossible!" said Steve his eyes taking in Buckys features, even as he said that he realized more and more the differences between the Winter Soldier he had met a couple of weeks ago and the man lying in front of them; Buckys features seems less gaunt than the soldiers, he was also slightly less bulky than the Soldier; the Soldier had been through merciless torture, and intensive training at the hands of HYDRA that this Bucky hadn't.

"Not really," came Tony's voice. He watched as two stabilizing kick-stands extended from just below his calves keeping the suit from falling and the entire suit opened up at the front allowing Tony to step outside dressed in jeans and a t-shirt displaying a tall thin Asian man in a yellow jumpsuit delivering a devastating punch to an unseen enemy.

Miss Lewis raised her eyebrows. "Bruce Lee?" she asked in surprise.

Tony just smirked and shrugged.

"What do you mean, not really?" prompted Steve.

"Just that another impossibility such as this occurred a couple of hours ago back at Stark Tower," he said walking up to stand next to Steve peering down at Bucky. "You might remember it Cap, you were bringing it flowers when I intercepted you earlier."

"You think the two incidences are connected?"

"Hmm, let me see," he said mockingly. "Two people from the 1940s suddenly appear in the year 2014 with no idea how they got there and both of them are somehow connected to you?" he pointed at Steve. "Yes I think they are connected, what about you?"

Steve ignored his snark and nodded. "I think so too," he replied. He looked back down at Bucky and stared. The possibilities; his best friend back with him? Not some damaged weapon of HYDRA, but whole, well mostly whole, the man he trusted more than anyone else, back? And Peggy too? He resisted the urge to pinch himself to make sure this wasn't all a dream instead he looked at Dr Foster. "What did you hit him with?" he asked her softly.

She held up the gun which Stark took removing the magazine and examining the bullets. "ICERs," she said. "Two rounds; one to the chest, one to the head."

Stark shook his head. "These aren't regular Night Night bullets..." he said off handedly.

"Night Night bullets?" asked Steve. "Really."

Stark shrugged. "That's what the SHIELD scientist who developed it calls it," he replied. "You have to admit it's a fitting name considering one of those bullets can knock a man out for hours. As for this," he held up one of the bullets which seemed to have bright blue liquid inside. "this has to have a more potent dendrotoxin to knock out a super soldier, I'd love to meet the person who developed this. However," he looked at Jane. "I would like to know how _you_ have access to such Hi-tech stopping power, Dr Foster."

Jane nodded towards the lock box. "Couple of months back an Asgardian named Lorelei arrived on earth running from prosecution for her crimes, she didn't use the Bifrost so we never registered a reading, a few hours later Lady Sif arrived using the Bifrost which we registered. She, with some help from a SHIELD team, managed to capture Lorelei and take her back to Asgard. In light of those events and my connection to Thor, Agent Hand gave us those weapons in case we ever needed to defend ourselves."

Stark walked over to the lock box and opened it shuffling things around and examining the other magazines. "So these look like standard 9mm rounds," he said picking up the plain magazine, he lifted another magazine this was yellow. "And what about these?" he asked Jane.

"Tracking," she replied. "It releases microscopic trackers that can be absorbed by the human body via nose or mouth or even the skin, it's a just in case kind of a thing."

Stark nodded looking mildly impressed and started thumbing through the files in the box.

"So how long until he wakes?" Steve asked his voice now a little shaky as everything started to sink in.

Miss Lewis looked down at Bucky with a curious expression on her face, Steve's eyes widened a second later as he recognized the look, he resisted the urge to smirk; same old Bucky, charming the ladies wherever he went. "Won't be long now, I think."

"Miss Lewis..." he started to say when she interrupted him.

"Darcy's fine, Captain Rogers," she said a little flustered. "Odin knows I don't need the press learning I make Captain America address me with a title."

"Darcy," he said with a smile, he held out a hand for her to shake. "Steve," he said firmly. "and _I_ don't care what the press says about me." he added an infection on the 'I' and looked at Stark meaningfully causing Darcy to giggle. Steve instantly decided that he liked Darcy especially if he was right about her feelings for Bucky, he had a feeling though that there was more to Darcy Lewis than meets the eye, not anything sinister but like he had a feeling that she would go places much higher up than the lab assistant that she was now.

"Darcy, was Bucky alright when you talked to him?" he asked in a whisper. "I mean he fell of a train and down a ravine..." he shut his eyes as the memory, still fresh years later assaulted his vision.

Darcy's laid a gentle hand on his and squeezed. "He was okay, Steve," she assured. "He wasn't great, he lost his arm and that hit him hard a couple of times, and he was devastated when he thought you all had died but after I told him about you being alive he seemed to brighten up," she nodded her head at the scattered photographs by the couch. "We were looking at photos of the Avengers and I was explaining stuff about you all when Jane here decided to go Robocop on us."

Jane had the decency to blush a little in admittance to her misguided actions.

Before anything else could be said though there was a soft groan that seemed to echo in the suddenly quiet room. The head in Darcy's lap stirred and Bucky opened his eyes to find five set of eyes on him. "Uhh, Hey," he said his voice droopy. He glanced up and Steve could imagine what he saw at close proximity. "This is a nice view," he said to another giggle from Darcy. "So is this what heaven is like?" Bucky asked and the others snorted catching on.

Darcy let out a short laugh and smacked him lightly on his good arm. "Bucky," she said reprovingly. "You're not dead."

As he saw Bucky regain his bearings Steve backed up a bit and watched as he registered the new people standing around him, Buck's eyes zeroed in on him and he whispered. "Hey ya punk." And Steve's vision blurred as he fell to his knees and wept in relief.

* * *

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the update. Please don't forget to comment, they help me keep rolling out new updates.


	11. Spies on a Plane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Natasha talk. Natasha and Coulson talk. Coulson and Skye talk. A whole lot of talking going on in this one!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously:
> 
> "Two Captain America's?" he whispered breathlessly and Natasha winced. "Natasha are you really telling me that we now have not one but two Captain America's here in the same century?"
> 
> Natasha nodded. "That's what I said," she confirmed.
> 
> And she startled as a grin spread across his face in unholy glee and he said in a strangled whisper that nevertheless carried to their ears. "HYDRA won't know what hit them."

* * *

* * *

Coulson and Steve stood aside as Natasha rode her bike up the ramp and parked it next to a bullet hole ridden Chevy Corvette; vintage '66 by the look of it. Natasha winced at the holes as she examined it her helmet under her arm. When she looked up Coulson and Steve were no longer alone; beside him was Skye filling Coulson in on something while throwing covert glances at her bike with barely restrained curiosity.

Natasha held back a grin and looked to Steve. "Can I talk to you for a second?" she asked him.Steve looked puzzled but nodded. They moved off the ramp and to a secluded area of the rooftop which looked down at the bridge where Natasha had given Steve CPR. As they moved past Coulson and Skye he called out to Natasha."May's prepping up the plane I'll meet you in the hold when you get in. Natasha nodded her agreement and they went inside talking in low voices their heads together."So what did you want to talk about?" Steve asked her as he looked out to the river, she was forcibly reminded of that kiss he had landed on her before they came out here, she turned to look out at the water as well. Natasha wasn't an idealistic, hell she was an assassin plain and simple; it wasn't just a job, it was her life; sex was a weapon and emotions were a weakness and yet she could still feel the tingle on her lips from when he had kissed her... she shook her head that was not why she had pulled him aside."I just wanted to ask if you were okay with all this," she replied to his question, well she wasn't completely made of stone. "I know it all must be strange for you, everything happening so fast; one moment your trying to stop a plane from destroying half the world, the next you're drowning...""And next I'm staring down the barrel of a gun held by a very skilled and beautiful assassin," he finished his tone joking.She managed not to blush but it was a close thing, she kept treating him like  _her_  Cap but he kept surprising her with his flirtatious banter and unpredictable actions, and she was confused with herself; she felt a little out of her depth with him and she didn't ever think that anything could be out of her depth. True she was a master of seduction and had used it countless times during her life but this was alien to her. If she had time to examine herself though, Natasha might have realized that not even once had she considered distancing herself from Steve, which was normally a reflex action for her where ever emotions were concerned.Natasha felt a hand on her arm and looked up to see bright blue eyes meet her green and her breath hitched in her throat."Natasha I'm in a strange world filled with no one I know or trust except you." Natasha blinked at that. Trust; that was a word and value that she was unaware of, she had been taught very early on not to trust anyone, and while she had gotten over a lot of her teachings in the Red Room that one still remained close to her heart, in the long span of her life she had trusted one two people, one of them she had thought was dead until a few moments ago and the other was the man who had given her a chance when he had been ordered to kill her.She didn't give trust and she didn't inspire it; her team the Avengers might recognize her skills as valuable and her prowess formidable but she had no illusions about them; they trusted her just as much as she did them which was not even a little and yes the Captain counted with them, he and her might engage in friendly banter but that was more her acting on Fury's orders to make the Cap as comfortable as possible in the new world, to have gained a friend in him was just a side effect but his actions during the rescue mission on the ship and during the HYDRA take over showed her that while he thought of her as part of his team, he didn't trust her to answer only to him, which he was right to do because she  _didn't_  answer only to him. Well not back then, now though...? That was a different story.

For Steve to trust her without her proving her worth was something of an alien concept to her, attraction she could understand, though not her attractions pertaining to him - that was still wreaking havoc inside her brain, but blind trust in her? It startled and she just started stupidly at him for a moment and then broke eye contact."You don't know what you're talking about Steve," she tried her voice as emotionless as she could make it staring back out at the horizon. "Trusting me might not be in your best interests.""Why not?" asked Steve no hint of disappointed or accusation in his voice, just curiosity.Natasha shook her head. "It just isn't," she replied and turned to walk away but Steve stopped her with a hand above her elbow just on her bicep, she turned blazing eyes on him hoping he knew that were he anybody else his hand would have been broken in three different places the moment he touched her like that serum or no serum.Steve just looked into her eyes calmly and just because she could she glared back at him until he spoke. "Until you give me reason to withdraw it you have my trust Natasha one day I hope you will give me yours," he released her arm and turned towards the Bus allowing her a moment to regain her bearings.Natasha cursed under her breath in Russian and turned too, she glanced once at him gave him a slight nod and started for the ramp of the plane, she let out a breath when she saw Steve lag behind giving her the space she hadn't asked for but still needed.She walked past her bike and the Corvette .The car looked like the sort Coulson would drool over. Speaking of; catching sight of him Natasha went over to meet said SHIELD Director. He was standing at the far end of the hold looking through a glass wall at a woman wearing a white overcoat working over a microscope, talking with Skye. A closer look at him told her that he was looking less at the scientist and more at Skye, she mentally raised an eyebrow at that observation but shook it off; she didn't get involved in other peoples business unless it was her mission, whatever is, was, might have been or could be between her former SO and his subordinate was non of hers as long as it didn't interfere with the job, then she would make it her business.There  _was_  something to do with Skye that was her business though and as she came to stand next to Coulson, Natasha said. "She could use some help with her technique."Coulson looked at her askance and asked. "Who?" even though he knew perfectly well who she was talking about."Your girlfriend, the hacker," she replied tartly, she wasn't above some light ribbing, even if it  _was_  none of her business; Coulson was her friend."She's not my - " he abruptly cut himself off and Natasha almost smirked at him. "I don't know Natasha," he back tracked choosing to ignore her jibe at Skye. "I think she got you pretty good on that shot," he cajoled back at her. "The Natasha I knew would have dropped her before she came within three feet of you.""She got lucky," sniffed Natasha but acknowledged that yes the girl had gotten past her defenses and landed a hit which almost never happened to her. "She's good," she admitted finally. "She could be better."Coulson's eyebrows rose up to his receding hairline. "And you're offering?" he asked incredulously.Natasha frowned at his tone. "You don't have to act so surprised," she said raising an eyebrow herself at his reaction, she folded her arms and huffed out a breath.Coulson shook his head. "Natasha you have been at the level of a senior Agent for the better part of half a century, the only reason I was your SO was so that I could keep an eye on you in case you turn out to be a plant and in all the years I have known you you have never ever even thought of taking someone under your wing and now after only meeting Skye once, hell after she punched you, you offer to be her SO? It's a little surprising you have to admit."Natasha thought about that for a moment then nodded. "I guess I see your point and if you don't like the idea then we can just forget about the offer and you can have May teach her but..."Coulson cut her off. "No no. Tasha I absolutely love the idea, and May _will_ be teaching her, you both will be, if the offers still on the table that is. You both have innumerable skills that you can teach her and I want Skye to be prepared for any threat, I want her able to defend herself and not rely on help. I want her ready." Finished Coulson with impassioned conviction.Yeah he had it bad. Natasha chose to ignore that, again, and nodded. "The offers still there, tell her we'll be starting tomorrow and tell her I won't be holding back."Coulson nodded. "She won't expect you to," he replied but paused. "Natasha you're sure you want in on this?" Natasha blinked. "SHIELD is gone Tasha, well mostly, there is no one stopping you from walking away from all this like you wanted when you left the Red Room, I won't come after you and I'll stop anyone who does. This could be your chance."Natasha regarded his words, they spoke of a time long ago actually they spoke of the same time he had mentioned earlier in order to convince her of his resurrection. December of '99 at the Rouge, they had been on a mission and she had had to take out a kid barely out of his teens brainwashed into working for the Ten Rings. He had been about to suicide bomb an entire stadium full of people in order to further his terrorist groups agenda, Natasha had been ordered by Fury to eliminate the threat, that's what SHIELD did, when they needed a job done that they were too squeamish to see through they sent the Black Widow.She had her orders and she carried it out.

 

Rookie Agents were warned by Senior Agents about the Black Widow; about how her heart was made of stone and that she didn't feel anything, about how if she was ordered to take out a target she took them out, even if that target was her own mother, that she never felt anything when taking a human life, hell they even said that she enjoyed it.

 _1789._  The last time she pulled the trigger to kill a human being the number was 1788 and that man had been 1789th, it was at the Fall of SHIELD. She remembered each and every person she had ever killed and kept a score not to have some sort of morbid bragging right but because she needed to, they might have been monsters, but if she forgot about them after she killed them than she would be just like one of them, her tally kept her sane and reminded her of who she was. _That order to kill the kid had taken something out of her and she had waken up in the night to a cold sweat the kids face in front of her eyes his forehead bleeding a thin stream of blood from the bullet hole shot straight between his eyes. Coulson who was sharing the bed with her in the hotel as part of their cover had gotten up with her and turned to the dresser beside his bed after looking at Natasha for moment. A chink of glass on glass and he sat up with a bottle of Vodka and two glasses._ _"Sometimes, I wish that I could just leave you know?" she said to Coulson the bottle half empty between them, her voice slurred a little but Coulson nodded for her to continue. "I mean I am doing exactly what I did for the Red Room that I do now for Fury, he gives me targets I take them down no questions. I don't have a choice in it, all I am is a weapon to both of them and all that happens is I get pointed to the nearest threat."_ _Coulson had taken her hand in his and said. "Tasha," it was the first time he used it. "you saved hundreds of peoples lives today, men, women and children are right now safe in their homes because of you!"_ _Natasha had shaken her head at the rational words that she had been using to justify her actions to herself all night being voiced in Coulsons soft baritone. "I just wish I could leave the Black Widow and go you know? Leave and never look back."_ _Coulson had looked at her for a minute and then said. "Then go," he said quietly._ _She had blinked at him. "What?"_ _He had shrugged. "Go, I'll make your excuses. Cover for you while you go dark."_ _"Coulson Fury would skin you alive for that," she had protested._ _"No," he had said. "I would probably be labeled as some kind of an accomplice of the spy of the Red Room and be interrogated for information and then thrown into the Fridge." he had shrugged at that. "and I don't think any of that will be up to Fury to enforce or prohibit, you do know that the ladder climbs higher than Fury at SHIELD right?"_ _"I can't let you go through that for me," she had said her voice pained and then she squeezed his hand which was still clasping hers. "We can both run?" she had asked scarcely believing the words coming out of her mouth._ _Coulson had stomped on that one. "No we can't," he had said with a sad smile. "Someone will have to stall SHIELD and I've got the best clearance level to seriously make a difference . . . and besides I believe in SHIELD."_ _"You believe in SHIELD?" she had asked him incredulously knocking back another glass of Vodka. "SHIELD that lies and cheats and has hidden agendas everywhere? You believe in **that**?"_ _"Yeah," he had responded knocking his own drink back. "I believe in what it stands for, one of its ethics exists to help people and that's why I'll help you Natasha but I won't come with you, SHIELD is my life and I trust the system."_ _"You trust the system to label you a traitor and throw you in high security freak asylum?"_ _Coulson had just stared at the glass at that question._ _"Whatever," Natasha had said after a while. "It's all wishful thinking anyway, I knew what I was signing up for when I joined SHIELD, I'll live with the consequences."_ _Coulson still said nothing obviously she had  made him question his faith in SHIELD little, her hand was still in his._ _"Coulson I may not  trust SHIELD, or the system, but I trust you and  I know that as long as you are a part of SHIELD you won't let it go completely out of control."_ _That had brought back a smile to his face and he had thanked her taking another shot of his Vodka, and then the bottle was empty and they were making their way to the bed their movements slow and exploratory. Their actions were not of two drunk people losing themselves but of two adults completely at the end of their emotional threshold knowing that what they needed was to forget for one moment the horrible things they had to do to prevent horrible things happening to others._ _They never regretted that night but agreed to never mention it or let it happen again. Barton had come in to check on them in the morning and finding them entwined together naked and nursing hangovers came to the obvious conclusion and tried to punch Coulson's lights out Natasha in turn gave him a black eye for his efforts. T_ _hey all agreed to keep their silence._  


 

Natasha smiled at that memory and looked at  Coulson. "That was a long time ago," she said quietly.

Coulson nodded. "And are you telling me that your wish to leave Black Widow behind has changed? That you no longer want to walk away?"Natasha pursed her lips; that wish never went away. She saw Coulson nod at her silence. "No Coulson," she said. "I still wish I didn't have to do what I do but this is all I have, I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I didn't  have this job."

   
Coulson studied her for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," he said finally his eyes twinkling in a pleased smile. "It's good to have you back Natasha."

Natasha nodded at him and hesitated for a moment and then shrugged leaning in to give the man a hug, he didn't seem to know what to do with that gesture but eventually returned it relaxing his shoulders a little. When she pulled back she saw Steve looking pointedly at the Chevy and Skye staring daggers straight at her. She smirked and blew her a kiss in the air and sauntered of the hold up a spiral set of steps and out into the living quarters of the Globemaster. She found a spare bunk unloaded some of her gear, then she settled down to wait for the Bus to take off.

* * *

Coulson stared after Natasha for a moment then turned to Rogers, he was aware of Skye's eyes on him but knew that now was not the time to address _that_ particular issue."Captain Rogers, I imagine all this must be very strange for you?" he felt a sense of deja vu recalling his first conversation with the other Cap, he hoped he didn't stick his foot in his mouth this time around.Rogers looked around the room and nodded shrugging. "A little," he said self consciously. "But not what I expected the future would be like, no flying cars for one."Coulson gave rueful smile and glanced down at Lola as Skye came out of the lab and stood next to him."Ah yes introductions," he said looking between the hacker and Rogers. "Captain Rogers this is Skye, Skye I think you know Captain America."Rogers stepped forward as Skye held out a hand, he took it turned it over and bowed over it in a formal greeting. "Ma'am it's a pleasure," he said as Skye raised an eyebrow at him. "and please call me Steve.""Well Steve," said Skye taking her hand back and smirking. "I think you could teach Mister Charm School here a thing or two, oh and please call me Skye." She let out a little giggle as Coulson gave her a playful glare."The woman inside the lab is Dr Jemma Simmons, she's a biochemist and the teams medical support, if you have any concerns about your health, Natasha said you fell from quite high into the Potomac and weren't moving afterwords, then you can consult her. She's is experienced with dealing with super soldiers, we've encountered some on our missions."

  
Rogers nodded and looking speculatively towards Simmons then back at Coulson. "So from what Natasha told me you've been having some problems with HYDRA agents," he said. Coulson felt Skye stiffen beside him; Ward's betrayal still in the forefront.

Coulson nodded to the Captain. "Yes,"  he replied. "when you defeated Red Skull the SSR rounded up all the remaining HYDRA and locked them up, or so we thought." Steve frowned at that statement. "They got away?""Zola did," said Skye seeming to regain her momentum. "he created what might possibly the first rudimentary AI computer, that's a computer that can think for itself, known to man kind. Although _we_ only discovered it's existence a couple of weeks ago when SHIELD was attacked, he stored all of his knowledge and genius into that system effectively making an artificial Zola motivated by HYDRA ideals and equipped with the most advanced technology of the age.""When we hit the information age," continued Coulson. "more and more information was being kept online and unknown  to us freely available to the Zola AI...""Unknown to us Zola started amassing followers, indoctrinating people into HYDRA and planting them strategically throughout SHIELD until we were the minority and HYDRA became the dominant force behind SHIELD. Even the Secretary of Defense, Alexander Pierce; the guy SHIELD answered to was HYDRA, a very high ranking official of HYDRA actually, he was the one who orchestrated Project Insight and the Fall of SHIELD." Skye finished her tone now subdued.Coulson looked Steve straight in the eyes. "Captain Rogers you offered us a great reprieve when you took down Red Skull, you threw a wrench in the works and waylaid HYDRA 's plans but it was only delayed, we managed to divert their primary objective; Project Insight, but it was a hollow victory for us really, HYDRA managed to destabilize the entire organization, as of this moment SHIELD is effectively gone."Steve's brow furrowed. "So if SHIELD is gone then why...?"  he trailed off looking around at the Bus's interior pointedly at all the fancy gadgetry thrown around haphazardly and raised an eyebrow.Coulson nodded in understanding. "When SHIELD fell, it's then Director; Nick Fury, rumored to be dead, contacted us and handed over the reins of the organization, or what's left of it, to me," As he said those words Coulson started to feel the great burden that Fury had placed on his shoulders, could he really do this?"But if SHIELD is gone and from what you say only a handful of loyal operatives remain then why not just accept defeat?" asked Steve. "Why keep fighting a losing battle?"Coulson had to restrain himself from pulling his gun on this Cap because he felt almost certain that the Cap he had known and worshipped would never think about giving up, the lingering suspicion of him being an impostor almost made him do something rash but he checked himself, Natasha had vouched for him, Natasha doesn't make mistakes, period. Instead of attacking him Coulson tried to think of a scenario that would posit Captain America suggesting surrender. He focused in on all that he knew about the man and realized that he was being tested, Cap wanted to know; if he was going to be batting for the underdogs then he wanted to see if their motivations were rational and not a suicide revenge mission.Coulson cleared his throat and answered Rogers. "Sir, the world at this moment is teaming up with people with special abilities, superhumans the result of experiments, genetic mutations, hell even aliens. Now I'm not saying all of them are dangerous but even if they don't mean to they can still cause harm to others, SHIELD was built on a foundation that sought to help these people and protect the rest of the world from them and them from the world. Whether we are five people, a hundred or a thousand, the world still needs us to be there, HYDRA is out there now, comfortable in the knowledge that they have us scattered, vulnerable and they are getting ready to take us out and if we don't stop them then there will be nobody else protecting the world from them. You're right we are a handful of people but we are still SHIELD and we still have a job to do.Rogers listened to Coulson's speech for a moment while Skye stared at him in surprise and a little wonder and then Rogers lifted up his right hand and gave Coulson a smart salute. "Director Coulson, Steve Rogers reporting for duty, where do you want me?"

* * *

As Steve went upstairs to check out his bunk Skye turned to Coulson and raised an eyebrow. Coulson blinked and Skye let a small smirk play on her lips, even in her wildest dreams she had never imagined this situation would come to pass but there she was contemplating all the ways she could get Coulson alone and have her way with him. For once she just wanted to see the calm, cool and collected Agent Coulson unravel in a way that didn't hurt him but brought him pleasure.

Yes she had harbored a crush on the older Agent since the first time she had seen that he was more than just a suit, more than just a part of the system; when he had initiated Lola's flight control and took her for a spin in the modified red Corvette she had swooned and she had wondered if this was how he tried to entice her into joining SHIELD then what would it be like to be wooed by him because Coulson looked to her to be the type of person who wooed a woman.Coulson glanced around for a moment and then nodded his head toward the SUV, Skye grinned and let the way to it getting in and squirming to find a comfortable spot as Coulson rounded to the other side and got in to sit next to her.For a moment neither of them spoke looking straight out towards the, now empty, lab outside of the SUV's front window and then both spoke at the same time."So... ""I...uhhh..."They both burst out laughing at each other and themselves. Skye took in a deep breath and gave herself a little pep talk;  _Come on Skye get it right, you're an adult, he's older than you that's true, much much older than you perhaps, but age isn't important if you really care about him, you've looked, you know that there is, and never will be, someone better than him and he is interested if that kiss was any indication...._ _mmm_ _... that kiss though... No no Skye focus you've got to talk to him now if you want more of those kisses later, so talk._ Skye looked up from her inner monolog ready to talk to see Coulson looking straight at her his face set in a focused frown that always turned her on. Their eyes connected and all her pep talks went out the window, without any real conscious decision they began to move towards each other and once again their lips met.

 

This time the kiss was much more involved, Skye could feel everything; his lips were firm on her soft ones and she let out a deep moan in her throat as the kiss deepened. She could smell his cologne; a lightly applied scent that was just Coulson and then  all other senses left her until all she could sense was his taste, lemons she noted; a sweet? maybe  a breath mint? And somehow she could taste chocolates or maybe that was just the Hershey bar she had swiped before from Jemma's stash before they landed mingling with his flavors, she also could detect a hint of something metallic a familiar taste and when she realized what it was she pulled back.

She eyed him; his clothes were rumpled and somehow his tie had loosened and two of his top buttons were undone, had she done that? She looked down at her own shirt and saw that she was just as shabbily dressed as she had been pre-spontaneous-make-out-sesssion.  _Way to act like an adult Skye,_ she said to herself.  _You only just mauled at him like some over excited teenage boy at the back of his dad's car on prom night._  She shook herself of of these thoughts and addressed what was most pressing."You're bleeding," she said nodding towards his bruised cheek while her chest rose and fell in sync with  him as they tired to catch their breaths.Coulson blinked at her and put two fingers in his mouth and pulled them out covered in light pink looking blood. "Oh," he said surprised. "I must have bit my cheek when Natasha landed that blow."Skye nodded not wanting to remember that incident; her anger spike had almost took her by surprise and while she didn't regret her actions she realized now in retrospect that it was probably not a good idea to bitch slap the Black Widow in the face and that she had been lucky to make it out of that altercation with her life intact or at least not ended up a big puddle of goo at Natasha's feet."How much of you own blood do you have to taste before you don't even realize that you're bleeding internally."Coulson shrugged at that one and went to speak but Skye cut him off again."You must get punched in a the face a lot huh?" she asked adjusting her top."No not really," said Coulson sighing. "you'd be surprised how often you can taste your own blood in your mouth even when if you're not hit in the face."Skye went to ask another question when Coulson interrupted her."Skye," he said exasperated, and she winced."I know, I know," she said. "Stalling, but you know this I kind of huge, AC."Skye saw Coulson's expression close off a little. "It's alright if you're having second thoughts about this,"  he said although it sounded as if he extracting glass from his eyeballs as he said it. "There are a lot of factors that we might have to consider and maybe the two lapses could be considered isolated incidences that we can forget about."Her heart started thumping hard as she realized what was happening, her pep talk had failed and she had reacted like a teenager trying to avoid taking about the situation. Her usual defensive tactic had backfired and her immaturity had given a chance for Coulson to reconsider all those doubts he probably had about starting a relationship with his subordinate, a hacker, and a girl that was more than twenty years younger than him. As Coulson started to reach for the door handle Skye thought frantically of what she could do to stop him leaving.A couple of thoughts came to mind, she could pull him back and kiss him senseless again, he _was_ affected by her and if she ravished him in the back seat of the SUV it could help with his decision to be with her, she could leap forward and lock the doors down with the switch on the door panel, she could even let her emotions go and break down forcing Coulson to comfort her and get him to stay that way.And each and every idea sounded more and more immature to her than the last, she wasn't going to earn Coulson's respect and serious consideration as a viable partner if she acted like a child, those tactics might work with someone like Miles but Coulson was a different breed entirely; he would rescue a damsel in distress but he would not take advantage of her vulnerability and if he found out that she was faking that vulnerability than he would lose a lot of respect towards said damsel and after all Skye had always told herself that she was no damsel."Italy," she says her voice determinedly calm, she watches as Coulson freezes, his hand on the handle tightens bit he doesn't open the door. She knows that he is being assaulted by images just as she is at the mention of that one word. "Quinns villa," she continues closing her eyes for a moment to stem her tears before they got started, she opened them again to see Coulson's jaw clench.

 

"It all became real for me that day. Before it was all different, I was part of a team of _spys_ and we helped people with gifts, I got to hack into systems without being arrested, I had a sullen but steadfast SO who I could trust with my life, I had _friends_ for the first time, people I likes, we played cards or video games and watched movies in our off hours and I had a massive crush on our commanding officer ever since he flew me in his badass red Corvette who he let's no one touch.

 

If a few of the missions were dangerous then well that's what I had signed up for right? I had thought of it as a game, I would save the world by day and trounce FitzSimmons in monopoly by night, or we would get together to prank W-Ward, occasionally recruiting help from May, my crush on you was supposed to be a fleeting thing, I recognized it and everything that came with it. You were my hero, you literally picked me off of the streets, gave me a job, gave me a home and gave me a family, _your_ family, I mean how could I not fall all over for you?

 

But then I got to know you, the more I found out the deeper I fell; the way you tried to save Dr Hall, how much you beat yourself over Amador, your dedication and trust towards the team in Peru. I felt like shit when you guys caught me with Miles and I was sure you were gonna dump me but no, you still  helped me and when you found out about my parents redacted file you broke so many protocols, so many rules that you knew were there for a reason just to give me a peace of mind. I found my crush turning into something more, I admired you, yes but I also wanted to please you, see approval in your eyes.

"God Coulson when I found you at that test site hooked up to that machine I was so terrified and when you said to let you die I don't know how I even managed to stand, I think I had actually fallen to my knees then. And when you looked at me and said my name I knew then that I was never going to stop loving you."She saw Coulson shift at the word but she continues knowing that he wasn't going to say anything until she finished. "It still wasn't real though, yes I loved you but I was realistic, you were so much more older than me and much more experienced in every way that mattered and I was still just a kid off the street. I knew we could never be and I was fine with that but one thing I wasn't fine with was being something like your surrogate daughter, I was always happy that you treated me like an adult instead of hiding things from me like a father would a daughter, protecting me from the big bad world, you helped me get a footing on my own and never coddled me and I was grateful for that , I had that going for me at least but I still knew that even if you returned my feelings there was no way you were going to act on them because you were the boss and your dedication  to SHIELD was your life, I was still okay with that and cherished our then current relationship whatever it was. But then Italy happened."When Quinn shot that first bullet I was stunned, I had thought about a lot of possibilities of me going alone in to that villa but getting shot wasn't one of them, I had been so confident that Quinn or the Clairvoyant had some use for me that I thought myself invincible and couldn't  believe that I had been shot. And when that second bullet hit it was more of the same until Quinn walked out and I was trying to call for help. I knew you were on your way and I wanted you to save me but more than that I wanted to tell you, I wanted to say it to you so much that I promised myself that if I survived this then I was going to find some way to tell you how much you meant to me. That was the point at which I realized that this was real, that it was no game and if was going to be able to be any part of it then I needed to _get_ real. I woke up after you injected me with GH-325 and remembered my promise but before I could really talk to you HYDRA attacked and then there was Ward with his eyes and his 'awe shucks' look and I thought that yeah maybe with him it won't be so complicated and then you know what happened and we somehow ended up here with me shoving my foot in my mouth."Coulson had long since removed his hand from the handle and listened patiently as Skye poured her heart out, when she finished he nodded and said. "I admired you from the start, if I hadn't then I wouldn't have asked you to join SHIELD. The first time I thought of you in that way was when you were saying goodbye Mike Peterson's son, it may have had something to do with the red dress you were wearing but there was also the way you handled Ace and gave him hope that his Dad would someday be able to be with him again, you didn't even know him for more than three days and his Dad had taken you hostage less then twelve hours ago but you still tried to help him adjust, hugged him and comforted him. It made me see you more than as a headstrong hacker who didn't know when to back away before she got in way over her head."Skye scowled at him for that but couldn't quite hide the smile on her face at the praise he gave her. "From that first day on the job with that raft idea?" he continued. "To how cleverly you managed to fool the Clairvoyants eye spy device I was constantly being impressed." he shifted a little uncomfortably after that and then said. "Uh... it's probably very unprofessional of me but do you remember how angry I was when May caught you with Miles?"Skye winced at the reminder of one of her more worse decisions since she joined SHIELD and nodded. "Yeah well I might have been more angry at the fact that you slept with Miles more than you tipping him off about our investigation." Skye's eyes widened at that and she looked at Coulson in wonder, he smiled self consciously bit soldiered on seemingly unable to stop once he got started. "it didn't really help that May had recorded every moment you had spent with Lydon from the second you entered his apartment to your capture..." he trailed off letting her come to the horrifying conclusion."Oh. My. God." said Skye her face flushing crimson as she ducked her head looking away from Coulson's gray eyes. "Tell me you didn't watch it Coulson, please tell me you didn't watch me and Miles fucking." Coulson seemed to flinch back at the explicit but didn't reprimand, instead he sighed."As Commanding Officer, it is my duty to review each and every piece of evidence gathered in the field.""Oh no," moaned Skye mortified."I deleted it," he said reassuringly placing a light hand on her shoulder which she didn't push away. "May gave me her only copy and I deleted it after... Miles was very lucky to leave that plane alive Skye after seeing... I had a hard time not seeing red when I talked to him especially after he made you cry." He spoke with pauses in between as if he was trying to restrain his anger.Coulson cleared his throat and Skye watched as he got a handle on his emotions. "Of course during your probationary period with us you impressed me a number of times but you have to understand Skye that your incident with Miles caused most of the team to want to see you off the Bus," Skye's eyes filled at the thought of those days, she had been hard pressed to get them to talk to her again. "I couldnt actually let you go, you were already important to me by then but I couldn't keep you on without some sort of repercussion for you infractions and that's where the bracelet came in." Skye unconsciously rubbed her left wrist, that bracelet was the single most evil thing she had ever come across but she had no idea how evil until she had had to jump through so many hoops to save Coulson.She saw Coulson wince at the gesture and let go of her wrist, she had never resented Coulson for giving  her that  bracelet and didn't ever want him to think that, she had been the one to fuck up with Miles she had deserved the punishment."And it made me feel more of an ass when you actually told me about the reason you did what you did," Coulson's voice was soft now, he reached over and gently life her hand clasping it in his, Skye tightened her grip willing him not to let go, his hands felt right in hers, slightly callused and rough from doing SHIELD Agent stuff but of course warm and caring as he held her hand. "I made it my mission to find out all I could about your parents because I couldn't stand to see the look in your eyes when you looked at that redacted SHIELD document."Skye squeezed his hand in hers and said in a hoarse whisper her voice laced with emotion. "Thank you."Coulson nodded and pulled her in for a hug, had a kiss on her hair and surrounded by the scent of strawberries he continued. "When you came to my rescue it was you who pulled me out of the single most terrible experience of my life. I had thought I was imagining your voice calling to me to come back to you but when I opened my eyes there you were, saving me. You were my hero that day Skye."Skye pulled back and touched his lips. "Thank you," she said and gave him a chaste kiss, she went back to laying her head on his chest listening to his heartbeat as he went on."Of course when it came to my turn to save you I was terrified out of my mind. When I found you at the Villa lying in a pool of your own blood shot to hell and calling for us, I have no idea how I managed to get Simmons to help or get you into that Hyperbolic Chamber because all I could see was the red of your blood and all I could hear was the pounding of my heart, I was ready to do anything to save you."I guess that was what Jared was counting on," said Coulson running a hand down over her dark hair making Skye shudder in pleasure. "He told me himself that this was probably what the Clairvoyant was after the location of the life restoring drug but I didn't care, all I cared about was saving you and anything else didn't matter. Afterwards I wanted to tell you all about how I felt but then HYDRA attacked and we were all rushing for cover. "Skye nodded her head and snuggled more closely to Coulson and he tightened his grip on her and they both settled into comfortable silence feeling content to just hold each other after that emotional upheaval. They didn't speak again for a while though they did steal more kisses but none of them were heated, that could wait for another time.

* * *

Once Coulson had dropped Skye at her bunk and May had taken the Bus off the roof of the Triskelion, Skye settled down in her bed and opened up her laptop, she hacked into the Buses mainframe and navigated her way to Mays logs and private files, she found the folders marked only as 084-SK and browsed the folders, she had already seen most of these but now she navigated to some of the earlier ones and stopped at one marked as LYDN she opened the single video in that folder, winced at the visuals, closed it after five seconds of listening to her fake moaning and deleted the entire folder. As quietly as she had entered she left leaving no trace of her tampering and with a much more settled peace of mind she closed her eyes and went to sleep.  

 

* * *

* * *


	12. Hiatus Notice

I'm sorry to disappoint anyone who was waiting for another chapter to this story, I apologize.

The next few chapters will be Peggy Carter heavy and I recently realized that I don't really have much knowledge about the character and might be butchering her personality traits to fit into my story. 

The only reference point I have available to any form of character development towards Peggy is Captain America: The First Avenger which is, I admit after Ironman 3, my least favorite MCU movie.

Unfortunately that movie really doesn't leave me with much to work with seeing as the only things we, or maybe I, learn about her is her badassary, her jealousy and anger in regards to anyone else coveting Steve, her friendship with Howard Stark and the Howling Commandos and her loyalty towards the SSR.

Now maybe you've noticed the lack of quick updates recently as well and I admit that I was hoping that AoU might give me a little inspiration to continue with it but as you might expect this story along with probably many others got Jossed; which i dont have a problem with, I am no Joss Whedon and while I thought I had a cool concept to make a story, he showed me last week just why he is the Director and Writer for the Avengers.

But now more than ever I look back at my characters and just go meh, whereas when i started writing I was energetic and excited about submitting a new chapter and getting your feedback.

So I am going to put this story on hold while I go watch Agent Carter, rewatch the MCU (I don't read the comics, sorry guys), try to flush out my characters more and try to finish this story, because rest assured that I do plan on completing it and if in the unlikely event that I do decide to give up on Destiny Intervenes I will let you guys know. Although I don't think that message will be as long winded as this.

Again sorry about this boring message here instead of a new chapter, I'll try to bully my head into working again soon. Also expect some edits to existing chapter because if I am to include Agent Carter in here then some of Peggy's back story will need to be reworked.

If you guys do decide to comment in regards to this message then please do not include any spoilers to Agent Carter as I haven't seen a single episode of that series.

Thanks for reading this drivel and I'll take this opportunity to thank all you guys who have commented and left kudos for this story, your feedback has helped me tons and I will use your show of support to make sure to return to this story soon!!

~~~

Navnit. 


	13. Reprieve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title of this chapter states this is a reprieve for all those wonderful readers out there who chose to show their support for my story, unfortunately I'm not completely off my hiatus in regards to this story but a couple of days ago I received a very long and heartfelt comment from one of my readers that showed me that my story is still being appreciated. 
> 
> Truth is one of the main reasons that I put this story on hold was the underwhelming responses it was getting for the last couple of chapters that I posted on another site. Obviously the response on this site was very positive hence why my last chapter never got posted on the other site. 
> 
> This makes me sound like an attention seeking brat but the truth is that I work 14 hours a day, six days a week and I have to actually make time for a lot of my side hobbies and passions so while I do get inspiration on my own some feedback from my readers really gives me the motivation to get chapters out faster. 
> 
> When I post my story here I get hits immediately and within a day I get a couple of comments and tons of kudos and it helps me a lot but when I posted my last chapter on F.net I got nothing. I feel like a brat admitting this but it was disheartening to see that my story couldn't garner a response from those readers.
> 
> I have a bad habit of doubting myself and the lack of enthusiasm over at F.net got to me, I wondered for quite a while if maybe I wasn't as good of a writer as I thought I was, don't get me wrong I am no J K Rowling or Stephen King but I believed that I could actually write down a narrative and actually get my story across to a reader, F.net readers of my story made me doubt that ability so I stopped writing for a while. 
> 
> Then a couple of comments made me question my whole story and I decided to give up the entire thing. To tell you the truth for the last two months I have been debating whether or not to abandon this story. The only thing stopping me from doing so are you wonderful readers over here at Archive of our Own.
> 
> I look back up and realize suddenly that I have written down a lot of the internal conflict that I never meant for my readers to know but I don't want to erase it. You readers deserve to know why I am no longer feeling comfortable continuing this story. I had abandoned updating this story and started writing a few new ones concerning other fandoms but because of the couple of comments and of course the tons of kudos from you all I decided to post one of the two chapters I had written previously but hadn't posted because of the previously mentioned internal conflict.
> 
> Please keep in mind that I'm still not sure if I have any more enthusiasm to continue this story. I feel like ever since posting that last chapter on F.net I have developed a block for this story. I have two chapters already written which I will post here exclusively but after that its all still up in the air. 
> 
> I'm now scared that this note might actually be longer than the actual chapter! I sincerely apologize for unloading all of this on you guys all of whom have been very supportive of my story and I assure you that this is the last of my unbearably long notes.
> 
> I totally understand if you think I'm asking too much from my readers, every time I ask my readers to read and review or comment or leave kudos it makes me feel a little cheap and truly I dearly appreciate all those readers who simply read and move on either subscribing or bookmarking as they go, its after all exactly what I used to do before. Nowadays though, maybe through self reflection, I make sure to at least leave a kudos for the authors efforts.
> 
> Feel free to rave at me in the comment section about my whiny notes. Now on to the chapter.

Bucky's eyes widened when Steve broke down he pushed himself off of Darcy 's lap, a little reluctantly, and knelt beside his best friend.

"Steve!" he said in a frantic whisper. "Hey come on man don't..." he had reached out while trying to console him with his remaining arm and laid his hand on Steve's shoulder and Steve threw himself at Bucky. If it wasn't for his enhanced strength Bucky might have been bowled over by Steve! As it was he grasped his brother's shoulders and steadied him while Steve clutched him around the middle and bawled his eyes our on Bucky's shoulder muttering incoherently.

Bucky was immediately transported to the days when bouts of fever and illnesses made Steve so delirious that he would go on crying until he exhausted his weak body and it was Bucky who was always there to wipe his tears, to tell him that it was going to be okay, to coax him back to sleep. He wondered for a moment; who had been there for his friend ever since, he had woken up? Was there anyone who the punk had gotten close to or was it more of the usual, that he made more enemies than friends and dealt with emotions and feelings on his own.

He gripped the punk tightly with his only arm rubbing it up and down his back as he felt the people around them get up and leave the room giving them some privacy, he felt a small hand brush at his hair as they passed by him and he closed his eyes as Darcy's touch calmed him enough to encourage Steve to get up and take this emotional upheaval to the sofa. He carefully avoided the photographs still strewn all across the floor around them; determined to pick them all up later and hand them to Darcy. They were obviously very important to her.

Their relocation seemed to have jarred Steve into reality and he tried to get a hold on his emotions trying to be Captain America again, Bucky wasn't having that; his best friend wasn't the Captain, that was just a persona he put on to try and hide his vulnerabilities. His best friend was Steve Rogers, the weedy kid from Brooklyn who had been by his side since childhood, the boy who stood up for others even when he couldn't handle standing on his own two feet.

"None of that, punk," Bucky said ruffling his hair and then gently nudging Steve's head down to his lap. Steve's bloodshot eyes widened at the gesture and he shook his head glancing at the closed door of the living room. "Never mind that," Bucky said firmly, it was always like this with him. "You know this helps so c'mon."

Back when he would become upset it only helped when Bucky would lay Steve's head in his lap and stroke his hair until he calmed down, his mother had used to do that but when she had died Bucky had taken over all of her responsibilities pertaining to Steve.

It sounded less masculine sure but Bucky had never given it a second thought when Steve, wracked with grief over his mums death, had told him how much he would miss those moments with her. It didn't matter how weird it would sound to other people, his best friend needed comfort and Bucky was going to provide it.

He even smiled as Steve lay his head in Bucky's lap and turned his face in to bury it in Bucky's stomach relaxing it seemed for the first time in years

After about ten minutes when Steve seemed to have completely calmed down Bucky mumbled down at him. "It's been what ten - twelve years since we last did this?" It was when Bucky was officially leaving for his first posting, they had both been crying then.

Steve's voice came muffled as he snorted. "More like eighty four years Buck, catch up."

The fingers that were still stroking Steve 's hair tightened as Bucky yanked on then playfully. "I meant for us, Punk," he said testily. "And you damn well know it."

Steve had let out a yelp and moved away from Bucky's abusive hands sitting up next to Bucky and glowering at him while rubbing his aching scalp. "Jeez Bucky, you don't know your own strength do you?"

Bucky's smile immediately dampened, he looked down at his hand and frowned. "I guess with you it was easy enough to forget..." he felt Steve place a hand on his left shoulder.

"Hey, Buck," he said wiping away the remnants of his tears away. "It's fine, we'll figure it out."

Bucky nodded letting out a heavy sigh, it was all too fresh; surviving the fall, losing his arm, being transported to the future and then meeting Steve again, better yet meeting a Steve that had been in said future for more than two years all alone believing all of his friends to be dead or dying. He shook his head; Stevie would not have taken that well, knowing him, and _he_ did better than anybody else, he had allowed himself to be isolated, letting his feelings fester and taking it all out on that damned bag! He had told Steve so many times that venting was not the right way to deal with his emotions but did he listen? Who had been there for his best friend when he had arrived in the future alone and probably scared out of his mind?

Going by his reaction to meeting Bucky again the answer to that was; no one. No one had been there for him but here he was reassuring him like he always did. He shook his head; the punk was an idiot, the was no hint of malice in his thoughts just a frustrated sort of fondness, not for the first time he wished Steve took as much care of himself as he did others.

Steve shook him out of his thoughts. "So according to the dame you were usin' as a pillow you were transported straight from the ravine you fell into to the desert?"

Bucky nodded grateful for the prompt, despite repeatedly stating that he needed to contact Steve and of course despite the time Steve himself spent mourning his death they found that they had surprisingly little to say to each other. "Yeah," he replied jerking his thumb towards the labs backdoor. "about five miles that way. I actually landed maybe fifteen miles further but walked until I couldn't and Darcy and Jane found me."

Steve nodded and the aftermath mischievous glint was back in his eyes. "Darcy, right," he said and Bucky held back an oath. "Cute dame, huh."

"I guess," Bucky said trying to be aloof, from Steve's grin he guessed he had failed. But before he could say something a knock sounded through the door and an obnoxious sounding male voice sounded out both from the door and out of the open red and gold metal suit that Bucky just noticed parked in the room.

"Hey Cap, you about done moping over your friend? Because I just wanted to point out that you've got some more moping to do back at the tower as Pepper was kind enough to remind me just now." There was a pause and then a loud smack sounded out from the suit. "Ow, damn it. Kid has hands quicker than her mouth... Uh okay okay, geez. Uh Miss Lewis here wanted me to let you know to take as much time as you need there's no hurry. Although Cap? Aunt Peg is still waitin on you." And the feed cut off.

Bucky furrowed his eyebrows at that last sentence. "Peg? He doesn't mean...?"

Steve nodded sighing. "The same. Turns out you're trip into the future wasn't an isolated incident. Peggy showed up unconscious on top of Tony Starks tower just this morning around the same time you arrived here."

Bucky blinked at that. "Stark? That's Howards kid? Ironman from what Darcy says." he nodded at the suit. "I'm guessing that was him?"

Steve sighed again. "Yeah. Tony has a way with people," was all he said.

Bucky grinned nodding. "Knowing Stark Senior I would assume that it would be _his_ way, right?"

Steve grinned ruefully at that. "You have no idea Buck. No idea at all."

Bucky chose not to comment on that instead he asked. "So ol' Agent Hardass eh? What's up with that?"

Steve narrowed his eyes at one of the nicknames the Commandos had taken to calling Peggy behind her back whenever she had to straighten them out but didn't address it.

"Yeah," he said his voice distant. "the other Peggy from this time line is still alive, I visited her the first chance I got when I woke up and found out she was still ticking, when I crashed that plane," he nodded down at one of the pictures on the floor depicting the half frozen HYDRA plane and Bucky nodded along recalling Darcy's animated story about the discovery of Captain America and his subsequent Thawing. "I was talking to Peggy over the radio, I had promised her a dance at the Stork Club..."

Bucky snorted. "You can't dance worth a damn punk," he said sniggering.

Steve scowled. "I know _that_ ," he replied though there wasn't any anger in his tone, Steve knew better than to take offense to anything harsh Bucky said to him, they knew they never meant it. "It was the principal of it! I was about to die, but it turned out I didn't..."

All joking left Bucky he reached out his hand and laid it beside Steve's fumbling one on the couch turning to face him. "It doesn't seem like you were happy about that?" said Bucky finally no accusation in his voice, it would be hypocritical since he had been be moaning his survival less than two hours ago.

Steve shook his head agony lacing his voice. "Buck, I had no one. You were dead now for more than seventy years! The Commandos all gone, and Peggy was the worst of them all," his voice shuddered and he looked to be on the verge of crying again. "They diagnosed her with Alzermers; it's a kind of disease in older people which makes you lose your short term memory, you slowly forget your friends, colleagues, hell even your own family."

Bucky's eyes widened at that. "Shit!" he said softly.

"I would go visit her and she would recognize me saying she knew I was coming back and we would catch up, I would tell her about the Avengers, the good I thought I was doing, she would say she was proud of me and how I should think about finding someone. How she had found love again and lived a full live and then she would pause, look at me and it would start all over again... "

"Damn," said Bucky words feeling inadequate, both the soldiers eyes were filled with tears she might have been a hard ass but Bucky mostly remembered Peggy fondly, as someone a part of their team, someone he cared about. To hear about the state she was in now was heart breaking, double so for Steve he thought because the punk had been in love with her. "I'm sorry Bud, I really am."

Steve blinked away his tears. "I stopped going, after that. I couldn't put myself and her through that shit any longer and then HYDRA revealed that it was alive and very active withing all of SHIELD to the point that we needed to take down SHIELD itself to take down HYDRA. Bucky... I... you... " he trailed off and Bucky watched the emotions play a cross his face for a moment before he hid it, damn the punk had gotten better at that.

"Stevie what...?" asked Bucky hesitantly.

"... And then not two weeks after we took down HYDRA Tony calls me to say that he found an unconscious Peggy Carter on his roof this morning, I rush to meet her, talk to her and Tony intercepts me saying that Jane Foster and her assistant had found Sergeant James Barnes in New Mexico. Believe me Buck, it's been a busy morning for me."

Bucky nodded along to all the things he understood from Steve's rushed ending and figured something out. "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there punk?"

Steve's eyes widened this time and his fist clenched, Bucky could see his jawline twitching. "Jane mentioned something about the Winter Soldier?" Bucky startled as Steve violently flinched at that name and stood up.

"We should go, we've been here long enough," he said and Bucky recognized the easy authority with which he spoke, his Captain America voice. He was hiding.

"Steve... " protested Bucky standing up.

"Buck," he said smiling, it looked forced. "I promise I'll explain everything, just not," his eyes lingered over the scattered photographs on the floor for a moment. "Just not here."

Bucky sighed and then nodded, Steve's word was his life he could trust him to follow through. "Fine then, where exactly are we going?" he asked as he turned to gather up the photographs, he looked up to see Steve grin again, this time it was not forced.

"I have a date I'm seventy two years late for."

* * *

While Steve and Bucky were taking a moment to gather themselves there was another form of emotional upheaval taking place in front of Darcy; more accurately two infamous tempers were making an appearance and Darcy didn't think that their quaint little lab was going to be able to handle the pressure, she glanced at the guy with the most infamous temper and thought that if _he_ were to lose it then the _town_ might not survive it.

Why were tempers flaring? Well it was due to Tony Starks inability to take 'No' for an answer. He was once again offering Jane a job at Stark Industries and Jane on par was inflating with indignation and spewing angry retorts.

"I'm just saying Doc that your talents are being wasted here..." Stark was saying but Jane overrode him.

"I'm doing what I love!" she said incensed.

"C'mon Doc!" Tony rebutted exasperated at Jane's stubbornness. "you can do what you love back at SI as well only with much better equipment, better funding and with my name backing your work you will never be ridiculed for you ideas ever again! Why woman won't you see reason!"

Jane got straight up in Starks face, Darcy figured this was only possible because Tony was relatively short for a guy. "I won't go corporate Stark," she spat at the man. "I won't. You can bet on it."

Stark rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you won't be working _for_ me! You'll be working _with_ me! Oh and with Banner too," he added as an afterthought.

Strangely through all of this Bruce remained impassive, in fact he was looking out the window seeming paying the arguing duo no mind at all, he didn't even twitch when Stark mentioned his name.

"And why would I want to work with _you_?" asked Jane livid. "You don't even choose to show your PhDs any respect!" Darcy's eyebrows rose at this; since when did you need to show a college certificate respect? Jane was in a stride though. "How many do you hold? Huh Stark? Five? Six? And not once do you even consider acknowledging them by giving yourself the rightful title!"

To tell the truth Darcy really didn't understand it, maybe it was because after her completion of her Poli-Sci Degree she still remained Miss Lewis and not Doctor or Professor or something like that that she couldn't empathize with Jane but maybe she could sympathize; it would be just like Jane to be counting the days to when she would officially become _Doctor_ Foster instead of remaining just as Miss Foster. If that was the case then she could understand how seeing someone hold more than the three she did but not use the title it granted them could grate on her nerves. Then she checked her watch; or maybe it was the fact that due to the excitement Jane had missed her full morning coffee dose and now was slowly unraveling at the seams, regardless Darcy decided to walk over and turn on the percolator just to have the caffeine supply ready as a precaution rather than need it and not have it.

"It's Seven actually! And why in the hell would I put Doctor as a title when I already have better titles to refer myself with?" he mocked pondered something for dramatic effect. "Hmm Genius Billionaire Philanthropist Tony Stark comes to mind and of course my favorite; _Ironman_ Tony Stark," he turned and winked at a eye rolling Darcy. "I love the classics."

Darcy hid a smirk and poured out two cups of coffee fixing one just like Jane drank and the other completely black, she walked over and handed both scientists the beverages and they both called a truce long enough to drink the coffee.

"Mmm," said Stark smacking his lips. "That's good joe. Of course at Stark Towers JARVIS is in charge of Coffee making and I have espresso machines in each and every lab there is, and what's more we import our beans directly from Java roasted to perfection." he honed in for the kill as Jane's eyes got glassy at the mere mention of gourmet coffee. Darcy couldn't blame her, her own mouth was salivating at the heavenly picture Stark was painting, but she shook it off and growled at the astrophysicist.

"Jane!"

Jane shook herself awake and screeched. "No Stark, No. Bribing me with coffee? That's a low blow even for you."

Stark sighed and nodded taking another sip of coffee. "I'm sorry, sorry but think about this will you? SHIELD is gone! Your funding will dry up soon and your gonna be stuck here waiting for what? All I'm offering is comfortable living quarters, decent hours, access to all of Stark Industries R&D files, your own personal lab and more coffee than you can imagine, and maybe the next time a certain Hammer wielding God comes to visit you won't miss him."

Darcy scowled at that, Jane was still smarting over Thors apparent dead beat ways and now Stark was throwing salt onto deep wounds. "Now wait a minute Mister Stark -" she started to say but Jane cut her off.

"Darcy comes with me," she said and Darcy stopped short staring at her boss incredulously.

Stark nodded enthusiastically. "Of course, her quarters and office are already ready as are your rooms and lab Dr Foster."

Jane sighed and nodded finishing off her cup and looking around her eyes settled the door they had come through. "We should check on them," she suggested making Stark grin he was obviously waiting for an opportunity to butt his head into their business.

He walked over to the door and banged on it, and spoke loudly with his left hand up to his mouth. "Hey Cap, you about done moping over your friend? Because I just wanted to point out that you've got some more moping to do back at the tower as well."

Darcy couldn't help it he hand swung up and smacked Stark on the back of his head; the insensitive prick let out a yelp. "Ow, damn it. Kid has hands quicker than her mouth..."

Darcy smirked. "You better believe it Stark, now if you want Jane to come work for you you will give them as much time as they need to figure this out, tell them that, go on."

Stark stared at her for a moment and then. "Uh okay okay, geez." he muttered and the louder; "Uh Miss Lewis here wanted me to let you know to take as much time as you need there's no hurry. Although Cap, Aunt Peg is still waitin on you." And he cut the feed turning to her. "There you happy?"

Darcy grinned prettily. "Uber happy! Thanks dude!" and she surprised him by kissing his cheek and skipping away to make more coffee.

* * *

 

Tony stared as Lewis skipped away, Bruce came up to him and nudged his side. "she's a force of nature isn't she?"

Tony snorted. "Not anything special," he denied.

Bruce just smiled. "Is that why you did exactly as she said two minutes ago?"

"She bullied me!" he protested still observing as Foster joined her immediately receiving a cup from Lewis which she drained in record time.

Bruce revised an eyebrow. "You're actually admitting that?"

Tony winced at his slip up and covered. "Well... no... it's just that...." he paused. "Hey you want some coffee!?" he said trying for a subject change.

Bruce actually grinned. "You know I don't drink it Tony, but thanks for the thought." Tony watched as Bruce walked off to chat with the Doc.

He observed Darcy Lewis; the woman was different, she kind of reminded him of himself before Afghanistan. He had always been snarky but now he was almost intentionally insensitive or insulting choosing to make people get a horrible first impression at any meeting or gathering, his snark got away with him because it was his security blanket and he used it a lot during the last few years, these days they were laced with tons of cynicism and a touch of bitter making for an uncomfortable cocktail to swallow.

It was part of pushing people away. It had gotten so bad that there were days he even forgot what it was like to be carefree and have fun. Lewis reminded him of those days, she was young, impetuous a little rough around the edges but as he watched her engage Bruce in conversation no reservation present what so ever he got a feeling that Darcy Lewis was about to make his life more interesting than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think! Sorry again for the long note at the start.


	14. Cold Winds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper and Peggy interlude and a little surprise...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was absolutely blown away by the response to my previous authors note. It has been so amazing receiving the support from you guys that I am finding it hard to put into words. You are wonderful wonderful readers and just to show you how wonderful you are I am dedicating this fic to all of you and come hell or high water I will finish this story and I promise you we aren't even near the end, so its going to be a long one too. Here is the result of all of your love and support towards me and this story; HIATUS OFFICIALLY LIFTED!!! On to the chapter and hopefully there will be many more after this.

Pepper Potts handed Peggy a cup of coffee and sat down next to her on the couch, she was still dressed casually not really ready for the day, after all they were on vacation; she had on one of Tony's rock band t-shirts and a pair of her extremely comfortable yoga pants, she allowed herself the satisfaction that Tony's fashion designer would be beside herself if she saw her now, then she turned to study the woman sitting across from her.

She wondered what Peggy would say if she revealed that she and most of her female classmates in grade school had declared there Idol as Margaret Carter and had modeled their lives after her. Peggy Carter; the original feminist, she fought for women's rights at the time at which it had really mattered, at a time in which women were not even allowed on the battle field Peggy had controlled one of the most influential military organizations that existed; the SSR. Then she went on and found the most dangerous and covert intelligence organizations on the planet. She was suddenly thankful that JARVIS hadn't mentioned the fall of SHIELD in his little history lesson before.

Peggy seemed to be unaware of the internal turmoil going on in Peppers head which wasn't a surprise; Pepper was well practiced in the art of smiling straight to a person's face and hiding her true feelings behind hers. It was immensely helpful when dealing with tiresome Stark Industries employees or difficult board members and it was especially useful whenever she had to deal with the ever troublesome Mr Stark himself.

"So," said Peggy finally when Pepper kept silent. "What is it about Dr Banner that Tony couldn't explain?"

Pepper shook herself out of her thoughts and frowned. "Bruce is..."

It was hard for her to explain exactly _what_ Bruce was as she knew she could never do the Hulk justice with her words so she looked up at JARVIS' sensors.

"JARVIS?" she asked the AI.

_'At once, Miss_ _Potts.'_

And a screen activated in front of them showing footage of the Battle of New York, specifically it showed a disheveled Bruce Banner dismounting from a beat up motorcycle. Pepper sat up a little straighter taking Peggy and her own empty cups and setting them aside, she hadn't seen this footage, actually she resolutely refused to look at most of them because it always made her throat close up and her eyes tear up as she was reminded of how close she had come to losing Tony that day.

But as the footage played she looked on because next to her sat one of the most influential women of the 1940s and '50s, a hero in her own right and her idol and maybe she was fan girling a little but she thought it was about time she got over her fears, she was a different woman to the one who had watched helplessly as Tony flew through the portal and then fell lifelessly towards the ground. Besides these days with the stabilized Extremis in her system she could probably take on the Hulk by herself.

"JARVIS how was this footage recorded?" she asked as she watched Steve and Natalie greet Bruce. She chanced a glance at Peggy to see her reaction at seeing Cap in a modern setting, Peggy gave nothing away her eyes sharp but she could see her focus mainly on Steve.

_'Sir tasked me with a couple of camera drones Miss Potts, equipped with High Definition Photo lenses that took clear visuals, some of he less clear visuals are CCTV video feeds that I accessed during the Battle.'_

Pepper nodded her thanks and turned back to the screen when  she heard Peggy gasp, her gasp wasn't as she had thought due to the Hulk making his appearance but due to the appearance of Tony in his Mark VIII suit leading one of the giant space leviathan towards the group of rag tag superheros on the ground.

_'The audio recording from the Mark VIII is available for this section of the video, Miss Potts, shall I include it into the screening?'_

Pepper nodded imperceptibly and Tony's voice floated out of the surround speakers hidden in the room.

"... Good," he was saying. "Tell him to suit up, I'm bringing the party to you."

Natalie's voice came through the comms even as they watched Tony lead the leviathan closer. "I don't see how that's a party!" she said wryly.

Next they heard Steve's voice. "Dr Banner, this might be a good time for you to get angry."

Pepper saw Peggy frown in confusion at the statement but didn't bother explaining, she had a feeling all would be explained soon.

"That my secret Cap," came Bruce's voice as if spoken from a distance, she thought it was probably because he didn't have his own comm unit and the suit was picking up his voice from Steve's comm. "I'm always angry!" he finished just as the Leviathan reached the group and Bruce turned turning green midway, his body mass increasing, clothes ripping as his muscles grew, his shoes splitting as his feet burst out from its confines and a large fist the size of a dustbin lid smacked straight into the turtle like maw of the leviathan, even the gained speed and momentum wasn't enough to budge the Hulk one inch and Bruce let out an inhuman raw putting more force behind his punch and they watched as the leviathan body rose tail first into the air threatening to fall on the heroes when Tony's quick thinking persevered and he shot two missiles into the fleshy insides exposed as the armored exterior of the levitation parted and then there was a shower of flesh, metal and alien blood that rained down on the Avengers as they moved out of the way or in Steve and Natalie's case the former using his shield to protect the latter.

JARVIS paused the video as all the Avengers, Hulk included, assembled together forming a tight circle and roaring a unified battle cry up at the remaining invaders and Loki, letting them know that earth still had its defenders.

Pepper turned to Peggy to find the unflappable SSR Agent completely at a loss, her mouth hung open in a gasp and she could visibly see the woman, younger than her in years, trembling. Pepper laid a tentative hand on her arm jerking her out of her shock, she closed her mouth shut with an audible clack of teeth and stared at the image on the screen currently focused on the Hulk roaring furiously up at the invaders his skin an angry green and his eyes homicidal.

"What..?" she managed and Pepper smiled reassuringly.

"Bruce is a scientist, he specializes in genetics, bio-chemistry and is an expert on gamma radiation," Pepper sighed as she recalled her quiet friends tumultuous past. "ever since Dr Erskine perfected the Super Soldier Serum various nations including our own have been trying to replicate it with varying results, during one such experiment the US government and the Department of Defense tricked Bruce into replicating the formula. They told him they were making a serum to immunize against Gamma radiation, Bruce decided to test the serum on himself," Pepper sighed as she looked at the still image of the Hulk. "When the serum interacted with the radiation..." She shook her head sadly. "Ever since then every time his heartbeat gets too high...well let's just say you won't like him when he's angry." She grinned half-heartedly trying to instill some levity in the conversation.

The horrified expression on Peggy's face didn't dampen and Pepper sighed. "Listen Agent Carter, Bruce, when he's not being a enormous green rage monster, is a kind soul and mostly just wants to be left alone. Ever since that incident his whole life changed and not for the better; he lost everything, his carrier, his girlfriend. Everything that came before the Hulk he had to leave behind. He has paid a price far greater than any crime ever deserved and what's worse is that it wasn't even his fault. So when he comes back please don't treat him like a pariah, this tower is the only place in a long time that he had been able to call home."

Peggy shook her head. "Miss Potts," she said heavily as she stared at the Hulk. "I am not horrified at what he could do to me, I mean yeah he looks very dangerous but more than that I'm horrified at what was done to him! That poor man."

Pepper nodded sympathetically. "He's been through so much and all he ever wanted was for our soldiers to be resistant to harmful radiation."

* * *

 

_"... all he ever wanted was for our soldiers to be resistant to harmful radiation."_

The directional microphone picked up Virginia Potts voice clearly, he made a mental note classifying this Banner into _' **Dangerous and Volatile. To approach with caution'**_ **.**  

He assessed his skill set and determined that he would be able to subdue Banner easily but not take him out. He looked down the scope of his sniper rifle observing the brunette sat next to Virginia Potts. She looked familiar... his vision swam and he caught a glimpse of her in a red dress walking towards him, he blinked and the vision cleared leaving him with her in her cross hairs the sight seemed wrong to him and he wrenched his sights away from her 

_The man on the bridge._

_"... the end of the line, pal."_

The soldier turned and packed the sniper in its case scaling the skyscraper easily his arm helping matters along, he ghosted along the roof to the other side where he rappelled down to an empty alley slinking away into the shadows to get ready.

His mission awaited.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked that surprise at the end, the Winter Soldier is my favorite Marvel character ever hands down, no contest so I want to do him justice, I'm looking to take my time with him. Yes Bucky has been in this story from the start but notice I said the Winter Soldier and while I love this Bucky he's never going to become that deadly ghost that is the Winter Soldier so he needed to be brought in at some point.
> 
> I know this was a shorter chapter than most but I promise a longer one next time, and yes as mentioned above there will be a next time.
> 
> I am borrowing trouble now but there is another story that I have been drafting during my HIATUS and I am posting it along side this chapter today. Its about how Tony finds some files from his Dads research with Steve's blood and discovers a formula to create a de-aging serum, meanwhile he gets news of Peggy Carter finally taking her last breaths. Tony confused and unsure of his moral standpoint asks Steve to help him decide if they should give the serum to Peggy or let her die in peace.
> 
> Confusing storyline to be sure but I get bored, what can you do? If you're interested then check it out here;  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4303254/chapters/9752814


	15. Hope For The Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Nat on the Bus. Coulson feels down, Cap helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your response to my updates are so addictive that I could not help myself but try to get this up quick. Sorry if it was later than expected. This chapter is officially post hiatus. This guys is the fruit of you labor and the reward for you support. I hope it measures up.

Agent Mays voice rang over the comms telling them it was safe to unfasten their seat belts. The team immediately went to work in the Comms Centre highlighting plans and going through blueprints for the cloaking device and making arrangements for all the necessary parts. Once that was done Coulson dismissed them all telling them to catch some shut eye because they needed to be up and running once they reached the Playground.

Steve, confronted with nothing to do, observed the team for a while before staring out the window at the Washington landscapes that were quickly disappearing below as they gained altitude, his thoughts were all in a jumble. This was the fist time he had been able to catch his breath ever since they scrambled to get to the newly discovered HYDRA base.

Since then he had battled with Red Skulls army, kissed Peggy Carter in the middle of said battle, jumped on a moving plane and fought and defeated the Red Skull before trying to crash a plane filled with world ending weapons into the ocean, instead he had been transported to the future where he recognized no one and yet felt an intense connection to a Russian assassin who he was sure held deeper secrets in her heart than HYDRA and SHIELD combined.

He looked over at said assassin to find her looking straight back at him, upon catching his gaze her lips turned upward in a sultry smile that promised things that made his stomach turn to jelly and seemed to hint that she knew exactly what or in this case who he was thinking about.

He gulped and pulled his eyes away from her knowing gaze and cast around for something else to stare at, he was pretty sure he was blushing, if Bucky was here he wouldn't miss the opportunity to rib him about still not having any game with the ladies even when they were throwing themselves at him.

He had no doubt he could succeed in getting her into his bed, he was equally certain that it would mean absolutely nothing, she was definitely one of those people who were too jaded to connect to anyone emotionally even if they had been intimate with them. And Steve had never been interested in that kind of relationship with anyone, he wanted something with meaning.

He glanced outside again, they were flying above a frozen body of water now and he couldn't help but think of his last days in 1946 which inevitably led him to think about Peggy. He sighed, guilt rising in his chest; he had loved Peggy, really and truly loved her but how real could that love be if mere hours after kissing her for that first time he found himself falling for another woman  one who couldn't be more different than Peggy Carter.

He almost jumped when said woman sat down beside him and smirked in his direction, he swallowed a sudden lump in his throat and turned to face her. Before he could speak though her smirk turned into a small smile and she nodded towards the comms centre where Coulson was reading something on one of the screens.

"He's taking us to a hidden SHIELD base somewhere in California called the Playground," she said. "He's running new SHIELD ops from there and wants our help. I heard you already offered?"

It wasn't actually a question but he still nodded a yes. "All this," He waved his hands vaguely. "Future stuff and time travel business is so confusing, I left someone behind in my time and it seems like I'm stuck here. Offering my services, being a soldier? That's simple and it's something I know how to do and if doing it helps stop HYDRA then all the better."

Natasha nodded and looked at him, Steve shifted under her stare but didn't break eye contact, then slowly a smile spread on her face and she held a hand out for him, he looked at it and then up at her and she nodded encouragingly. He clasped her hand and wasn't surprised to find a firm grip when he did.

"I signed on with them as well, so it looks like we'll be working together," she said as they shook hands, she looked at Skye who was standing a few feet away from  Coulson typing away on an astonishingly tiny computer that Agent Simmons said was known as a laptop? "I offered to help Skye, she's good and with training under May she can only get better but there a few things that I can teach her that May can't."

Steve wondered to himself about that statement. Natasha was exceptionally skilled he had seen _that_ first hand but May looked more seasoned, she definitely had more years on the Russian, those years had been kind on her though Steve thought, she looked beautiful but he believed that she would look even more stunning if she didn't have that very serious expression on her face all the time.

The years she had on Natasha though probably meant that she was the more skilled of the two and yet she believed that she, Natasha, knew some things that the asian Agent didn't? But Steve had long known not to judge a book by its cover, he needed to see both of them in action before he could come to a factual decision regarding both of their skill set. That would help him determine how to use them on the battlefield, If he was to work with this SHIELD team then he needed to know exactly what each and every member brought to the team and determine how to use them effectively as a working unit.

At the end of his inner musings Coulson turned to address the seated group around the comms centre and the lounge area, out of the corner of his eye he saw Agent May enter silently and stand at attention near the doorway.

"As you know a lot has happened these past few weeks," He paused to look around at each of the faces turned towards him and Steve recognized the obvious respect held in the eyes of each and every person on that plane; Coulson was definitely in charge of this rag tag group of Agents, Scientist, Spys and Hackers that made up the new SHIELD. "SHIELD has officially been disbanded and we are all that remains. Now in this moment we have two choices. Either we accept the status quo, leave SHIELD in shambles and allow those responsible to roam free. Or we do as Direc-... As Nick Fury wanted; we lay low, take out as many HYDRA bases as we can and we build SHIELD back up brick by brick until such time as we are ready to take the fight to HYDRA publicly again.

He paused and let out a quiet sigh. "I am aware that we are no longer what we were before, we are a shell of what we were, we have no support from high up, the World Security Council no longer exists, and the government now blames the events at the Triskelion on SHIELD refusing to even acknowledge the existence of HYDRA." He looked around at the assembled group and Steve saw expressions of anguish and anger. "We have been betrayed by people we trusted with our lives, Ward is still fresh on our minds and all we have are this team, the Bus and one secret base. It seems like a hopeless cause and I won't blame any of you if you decide to cut you losses..."

Steve frowned as the Directors voice fell to but a whisper and his shoulders slumped as he recounted what they had lost and what they were facing, he recognized what was happening, he had been burdened with an impossible task that when laid out so clearly seemed almost insurmountable even though it was he himself laying out the facts.

He got up. There was something else he could do now. 

* * *

Natasha let a small smile appear as she watched Steve get up, she had noticed Phil deflate as he listed down all the shit they were facing, she could see his confidence waver and his voice taper down to a whisper and her heart went out to her mentor as she saw the enormous burden that she sometimes saw Nick Fury carry now rest solely on his shoulders.

It was evident that Steve despite not knowing Coulson very well and Nick not at all still recognized the faltering steps of this fallen teams leader and he was going to do what she knew Captain America always did; give hope where hope was long given up on.

Steve walked up to Phil and rested a strong hand on his shoulder for a moment she saw Phil automatically straighten up from his slumped posture, then Steve turned to the rest of the room. "I know most of you know me as the guy who was a war hero in the forties, who was frozen in ice and thawed out two years ago and helped defeat and army of aliens and just two weeks ago brought about the fall of both HYDRA and SHIELD. But that guys not me. I just fell out of the sky a couple of hours ago from a plane I was attempting to fly into the ocean after defeating the Red Skull. I have little to no idea what SHIELD stood for before it's fall... but I do know what it's like to face HYDRA."

There was pin drop silence as everyone listened to Steve's voice, which was not perfectly practiced for public speaking. It was though the voice of a man who believed in his convictions, the entire room seemed to straighten up and pay attention to the sheer presence of that man.

"I know what it is like to face an enemy that doesn't seem to die and the more you put away the more come out of the woodwork," there was raw pain in his voice as he delivered his next statement. "I know what it's like to lose a friend and a brother to that enemy and I know what it is like to give up and feel like there is nothing you can do to stop the enemy."

His eyes were haunting as Natasha saw the effect the death of his best friend had on him.

"At the time that I was at my lowest I had a friend who helped me get back up. What she said to me, that's between us but when I did get back up and decided to put an end to HYDRA once and for all she told me something that stuck with me, she said that 'You won't be alone'. And that is my promise to you. I know that it's difficult and maybe the smart choice might be to get away while you're still alive but if you do chose to stay, then I promise you that I will be there with you and you won't be facing HYDRA alone."

She was just as surprised as him when she found herself standing beside Steve in three long strides, looking out at the team. "No you won't be," she found herself saying and it was like seeing the entire room relax for the first time in a long time and it might have been true if what Phil had said was true, this team had been through a lot in the last few weeks, they deserved to get back some of the hope they had lost along the way.

It was when Phil declared the meeting closed and assigned them all their tasks, repeatedly thanking Steve and shaking his hands, that she realized something important that she had forgotten to mention to Steve. He gave everyone hope when it seemed like there was none to be had, maybe with this news she could give some of it back to him.

She pulled him aside when most of the team had left the lounge and sat him down on one of the couches sitting down beside him keeping a respectable distance between them. She looked straight into his eyes and without hesitation told him.

"Steve, Bucky is still alive."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little cliffy but nothing too huge. Hopefully people aren't getting too turned around by these past and present self stories and if they are then I am sorry in advance. What ever feeling you have please let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you. If you like this chap then comments and kudos are appreciated and help me churn out more quick updates.
> 
> Shameless Plug: My other fic.
> 
> Want to read a Post AoU Peggy/Steve story? Paste the URL to read my new story; To Be Young Again.  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4303254/chapters/9752814


	16. Two Reunited, Two Reaffirmed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony, Cap and Bruce arrive back at the tower Jane, Darcy and Bucky in tow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay my notes might be getting a little repetitive because I simply have no words to describe how much I appreciate all the kudos and comments. All I can say is keep 'em coming in this chappy as well. Enjoy!

Pepper and Peggy were deep in conversation about the circumstances surrounding the fall of SHIELD when the Quinjet touched down on the roof of Stark Tower they both got up to see first Tony, then a young woman somewhere in her twenties descent the ramp talking animatedly with each other.

The girl was wearing thick square framed glasses and had long brown hair that fell in waves halfway down her back, she was lugging a huge backpack behind her.  Behind _them_ came Dr Banner with, Pepper was surprised to see, Dr Jane Foster who was clutching a large crate that seemed entirely too large for her small frame to be carrying, she was having what seemed to be an intellectual debate with the mild mannered Dr Banner who seemed to be glancing between the crate as if wanting to take it from her and at Dr Foster seeming to be genuinely interested in her questions.

She heard Peggy gasp then and shifted her gaze to the last two people descending the ramp. She knew the reason for Peggy's reaction but she _had_  seen Steve before, what made _Pepper_ gasp though was the man walking next to Steve. Before she could do or say anything though Peggy broke into a run heading straight for Cap.

Pepper stared after her for a moment then walked at a more sedate pace over to the chatting pair that included her boyfriend who greeted her joyously and gestured at the new arrivals.

"Look what I brought you," he said indicating the two new women.

"We're not pets, Stark," said the younger of the two offhandedly staring at the reuniting almost couple who were still near the Quinjet. They all then turned as one to witness as well.

* * *

Peggy had not slowed her momentum as she approached the two men choosing instead to throw herself into Steve's arms who caught her effortlessly, she then proceeded to snog him senseless.

Lost in each other they stood like that until a snickering right next to them made Peggy pull back and she was greeted with the signature smirk of Bucky Barnes, she froze for a moment recalling all that Pepper had time to tell her about the fate of Bucky. She would be the first to admit that Bucky's womanizing ways and devil may care attitude grated of her nerves but it didn't change the fact that James Barnes was one of her closest friends and confidantes when they were fighting on the front lines, the only one closer was Steve. She had wept when Pepper revealed what had happened to him. But standing before her now he looked nothing like the dead eyed ruthless Winter Soldier that had been described. In fact he looked almost exactly like the Bucky Barnes she had sent off along with Steve to the mission that had gotten him killed! Down to the exact uniform he'd been wearing!

She looked up into Steve's familiar blue eyes in confusion but saw him shake his head slightly indicating that she should not ask _that_ question yet, unfortunately Bucky also saw the shake and the smile slid off of his face and he glared at the two.

"Okay, punk. I'm getting a little tired of everybody walking on tip toes around me, I could feel eyes on me the entire ride over here. I know you guys are keeping something from me and it's time to spill." 

Peggy watched Bucky rant and got even more confused but Steve placed a calming hand on his shoulder, shoulder that was missing an arm, Peggy noticed with wide eyes.

Steve nodded. "Yes Bucky, there is something you need to know and I promise I'll tell you soon."

Bucky looked like he was going to argue but then the brunette with glasses who had walked down the ramp with Tony came up to him and grasped his wrist gently looking up at him, he looked back at her and a silent conversation seemed to take place between them at the end of which Bucky sighed and nodded back at Steve. "Fine," he said looking in between them. "You should catch up." He looked to Steve. "Sorry to mess up your reunion punk." 

Steve just smiled. "Its alright Buck," he replied. "I'll meet you inside and we'll have that talk."

Bucky nodded his agreement and walked off towards the penthouse entrance the brunette in tow and at Peppers urging Tony, Dr Banner and the other woman also left giving them privacy. Steve led Peggy towards the edge of the roof where comfortable benches had been placed near the chest high safety wall. They sat down next to each other holding hands and struggling to find words to say. 

Peggy's gaze wandered while out of the corner of her eye she saw Steve bow his head, she chose not to speak because somehow she knew that it was him who needed to take that first step, she had already expressed herself, very enthusiastically now that she thought about it.

She was brought out of her intense observation of the pilot of the jet doing her post flight check up by Steve's soft voice.

"I have imagined this meeting for two years," he said, his eyes still cast downwards. "Ever since I woke up from the ice, I dreamed of going back, that somehow all of this," he waved his hand around vaguely. "Was just a dream and I would wake up back in 1947, get to have our dance, get to tell you everything."

Peggy squeezed his hand feeling her heart clench at the pain in his voice.

"Over the months in this time, I've managed to make some new friends and got to the point to being able to accept that I was here for good and my life, my friends and family... _you_... were gone for good. I was trying to move on..." he let through a small smile. "Natasha... she's part of the Avengers... kept trying to set me up with someone else every other week back when I was with SHIELD but I kept turning her down..." He took a deep calming breath and let it out. "And now you're here... and Bucky's here and it's just all so much..." He finally raised his head to look at her, his eyes glassy and he looked so lost. It reminded her forcibly of that weedy, sickly Steve Rogers that had told her that his conversation with her was the longest he had ever had with a woman, it reminded her of the man who had been brave enough to undergo an experimental procedure, risk death to fight for what he believed in. "I don't know what to do, Peg."

Peggy didn't know what to say to that, she herself was feeling so off kilter in this new world, she didn't actually feel qualified to tell him that it was going to be alright or that they would get through it, so she didn't offer any platitudes; instead she leaned forward and brushed her lips with his, she felt him inhale before responding. She pulled back smiling and saw him smile as well.

"I don't know what to do either, Steve," she said to him. "I'm just as lost as you, maybe even more since I just arrived here this morning," she sighed as she looked up at the New York sky that at least was just as she remembered. "What I do know, though?" She could feel him turn his gaze on her, she looked back down to meet his eyes. "Is that you owe me a dance," she said the corners of her lips lifting. "And I'm here to collect."

* * *

Bucky and Darcy followed the rest of the guys sans Steve and Peggy in through sliding glass doors into a room that had mostly glass walls and fantastic view of the sprawling mass of buildings that was New York City, he could just make out the outline of the Statue of Liberty far off into the distance out of one window and the another showed of a grand view of Central Park and while recognizing those familiar landmarks told him he was in New York the mass of huge and completely unfamiliar buildings made him a little disoriented.

He took his eyes off of what looked like a giant hole in the ground where a building or two might have been and settled them onto the statuesque strawberry blonde who had walked out with Peggy. She was looking at him with a careful eye while being introduced to Jane.

Tony had greeted her with a chaste kiss and put a loose hand around her waist that he hadn't lifted off since, he took that to mean that she was either his wife or girlfriend, noticing the absence of a ring on either of their fingers he deduced **girlfriend**.

He gave her a hesitant smile which she returned readily but gave Tony a meaningful look that Bucky interpreted as a silent order to start explaining things. Tony took the hint and spoke up. 

"So, hun. It seems like Aunt Pegs trip through the time machine wasn't an isolated incident," he said by way of explanation.

It took Bucky a while to understand that he wasn't talking about an actual time machine but his girlfriend seemed to be used to Tony's double speak, her eyes immediately widened in surprise and understanding.

"What time?" she asked then seemed to catch herself. "Oh where are my manners?" She strode forwards offering her hand. "Pepper Potts, I'm Tony's..." she turned casually back to Howard's son as he grasped her dainty looking hand with his calloused one. "What exactly, Tony?" she asked him in clear jest.

"My love? My life? My...everything?" he asked as he walked over to one of the many, alien to Bucky, electrical devices spread around the room. "Which reminds me, JARVIS I thinks it's time to deploy the package."

'I don't think that's a good idea, sir.'

Came a voice out of nowhere that startled Bucky who was still holding Peppers hand, who had a surprisingly firm grip. "Oh that's just JARVIS," she said patting his hand reassuringly. "He's a an Artificial Intelligence Computer that Tony made a while ago, he runs the place, and I'm Tony's long suffering girlfriend if you didn't get that by the way."

"She's also the CEO of my company and soon to be major shareholder of Stark Industries."

 Peppers eyes widened again and she let go of Bucky's hand and walked over to Tony hands on her hips. "What?" she demanded. "When did we decide this? And why is today the first time I'm hearing anything about it." Without waiting for an answer she turned her head slightly to the ceiling. "JARVIS why is this ridiculous idea not in my schedule?"

'I'm sorry Miss Potts but since you are on vacation no schedule has been written up this week.'

Pepper seemed to harrumph at that but given her slight stature it didn't have such an effect.  Darcy, beside him, seemed to be taking the entire scene in with a wide smile, she nudged his side gently and whispered. "This is better than daytime TeeVee."

"TeeVee? What's that?" he asked matching her tone. Darcy stared at him nonplussed making him feel as if he was missing something but then...

"Oh my god!" She exclaimed. "You don't know what TeeVeee is?" She shook her head as if she couldn't believe it, then walk purposefully to their host. "Hey! Stark, where the hell's the TeeVee in this joint?"

"Ask JARVIS," both Pepper and Tony replied without turning their heads, Tony pretending to be immersed in a tablet while Pepper glared at his avoidance.

"Oookaaaay," said Darcy raising her eyebrows at Bucky and shrugging, she tilted her head to the ceiling and said. "Oh great and powerful JARVIS...Could you show me the TeeVee? Pretty Please?"

There was an actual snicker from somewhere in the room before

_'You need not be so polite Miss Lewis. It is in my protocol to adhere to any request asked of me by the residents of this tower. By all means think of me as a digitized butler with WiFi.'_

And while Darcy snorted at that last bit of gibberish she shook her head her demeanor somber. "Dude, I've seen what Hal and Skynet are capable of. I've gotta keep _you_ on my good side."

_'I assure you that won't be necessary, I am simply here to assist.'_

Darcy nodded but didn't look convinced.

_'The Television Screen by the way is the entire window facing the Lady Liberty, Miss Lewis You may request channel changes through me, however physical remotes have been provided and are located in the recesses of the sofas armrests at your convenience. Enjoy your viewing Sergeant Barnes. Miss Lewis.'_

"Righto Jay," she turned to Bucky and waved him forward. "Now this is way more uber wealthy and super duper high tech then I'm used to but I can work with it." Her vision shifted to his left and a soft smile lit up her face. He turned to see Steve and Peggy sitting close together softly kissing while holding hands.

Bucky grinned in spite of himself and shook his head. "Good going, punk." He muttered under his breath and turned to Darcy to continue his impromptu introduction to TeeVee when there was a gasp from across the room.

First thing he noticed that was unusual was that Pepper was suddenly wearing what seemed like part of Tony's suit gauntlet on her left hand, as he watched though the armor fell away to land softly on the padded floor leaving behind, what he was sure wasn't there before, a gleaming diamond ring on her left ring finger.

He shifted his gaze to see Tony kneeling on one leg and looking hopefully up at her and a voice came from up above.

_'Package has been delivered, sir.'_

Tony looked up at Pepper and said. "Well?"  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo that happened ;-D Hope you enjoyed that, don't forget to tell me how much by leaving kudos and comments remember your support is what keeps me writing so please tell me what you think.
> 
> My other stories currently being updated:
> 
> MCU - A de-aging serum, a dying Peggy, the decision? Is Steve's. Check it out here:  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4303254
> 
> DCU - A doctored article abot the future, a desperate Barry and the Speed Force. Here:  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/4378382


	17. Trouble Brewing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So so sorry for the wait, real life got bothersome, dealt with it, won't be a problem any longer. Anyways with the new season coming out I thought I'd treat you guys to a new chapter. Here we go...

Steve wasn't aware of the plane touching down or the SHIELD team disembarking, all he could hear was a rushing sound of his blood pumping hard in his veins, his hands itched to do something, anything other than think about what he had just been told.

"Down in the hold," he heard a voice say, he looked up to see Skye standing there her 'laptop' clutched in one hand a go bag in the other.

"What?" he asked voice hoarse.

"There's training equipment down in the hold, looks like you could do with blowing off a little steam," she said as she moved towards the door.

Steve nodded at her retreating back. "Thanks," He called out getting up.

"No problem," she replied and was gone.

Steve's mind was rushing with thoughts but he got up and took the spiralling stairs down to the holds. As promised there was an assortment of training and fitness equipment littered around the area, some of the simpler ones he recognized like the weight bench but others seemed to be a complete mystery to him until he spotted the black bag hanging further back.

He rummaged around for a moment coming up with some hand wraps, he took the time to sit on the weight bench and tie up his hands. He remembered the many times Bucky had told him that venting was not a good way to get rid of aggression.

Bucky didn't know that he didn't use the punching bag to take his anger out, he didn't even know how to explain it but the repetitive mindless movements, the exertion of his body and the provided outlet for excess energy helped him focus and centre himself better, anything he had been struggling with seemed more clear and easier to handle post workout than before.

His hands wrapped Steve got up performing a few warm up routines that weren't really necessary given his enhanced physiology but help him get into the zone. He ghosted a few punches in the air and stepped up to the bag. He threw a few light punches at the bag getting a feel for it before starting to speed up. Soon a flurry of punches could be heard from down the holds as Steve went to work trying to sort through the emotions he was going through after finding out that his best friend was not only alive but had been working for the very enemy they had been fighting against for years.

* * *

 

Natasha felt her phone go off for the third time that evening, knowing she would be ditching that phone soon she ignored it concentrating on her stance, May had asked to join her in a sparring session for old times sake and she decided that while she waited she'd work on her Tai Chi.

Her phone buzzed again and she rolled her eyes, Maria knew well enough that if she wasn't answering it was for a good reason she had no idea why the woman was trying to reach her so hard. She pulled out her phone to turn it off when she noticed the missed call notifications, she straightened up immediately moving to sit on one of the benches and scrolling down, she waited for a beat before...

There it was and that was the last one she needed, Natasha quickly typed in the second to last numbers in the list of missed calls in reverse order and held the phone to her ear.

When the phone was picked up Natasha spoke first. "Clint where the hell have you been?"

"Nat," came frantic whisper from the other side. "I'm sorry, I know things went to shit with SHIELD and I wasn't there but something's happened and I need your help."

She frowned. "What's wrong?"

She heard a sigh at the other end. "Its Laura, HYDRA has her."

Natasha's blood ran cold, Laura and her had gotten of to a rocky start but over the years getting to know her Natasha and Laura had become the best of friends often teaming up against Clint and making him moan at his misfortune.

"When," she asked her tone clipped as she headed out of the training room.

"I gave no idea," he replied. "I headed straight home after my last SHIELD mission, arrived at the farm two hours ago and found it empty."

"The kids?" she asked now out in the hallway heading out to the main convening area of the Playground. She bumped into May on her way they and signalled for quiet asking her to follow, May immediately veered off her intended course and shadowed her as she listened to Barton.

"Gone just like her and Nat, I found new baby clothes in the closet, the nursery had been repainted," he said his tone broken. "God, I think she was pregnant."

"Okay, Clint calm down, we don't know what happened," she said sternly as she approached the gathered Agents finishing their dinners and preparing for some down time after the hustle of the evening. "Is there any sign of a struggle, anything that indicates foul play at all."

"I think the giant HYDRA symbol painted on the nursery wall might be an indication of foul play, yes?" Clint said his snark more cutting than usual but Natasha didn't hold it against him.

"Okay, I'm on my way," she said moving to hang up.

"Nat. With SHIELD gone how can we even...?"

"Don't even think that Clint, I'm coming and I'm bringing help, we're going to get them back, alright?"

She heard Clint sniff before "Yeah, alright?" he said his voice thick. "I'll wait for you out back."

Natasha agreed then cut the line.

Coulson walked up to her. "Barton?" he asked and she nodded. "What's wrong."

"Laura," she said and he winced. "She's been taken along with the kids and on top of that she might have been pregnant, Clints not gonna be able to hold it together for very long."

Coulson nodded. "What do you need?"

"A ride, someone with hacking skills and atleast one more Field Agent."

"That's me," said May grabbing her gear from the side closet. "You'll need me to pilot the Bus anyway."

"I can pilot that thing easy, but thanks," she replied grabbing her own gear.

May nodded. "Of course, it's Laura." Natasha nodded grimly, they both would do anything for Laura. "I'm going to prep the bus," she nodded at Coulson and left.

Skye stepped forward. "And I'm your hacker," she said eagerly. "Seeing as I'm the _only_ hacker here."

Coulson looked like he was going to protest but held back. Natasha scrutinized the girl for a minute, she had potential to be an asset to the team but she was nowhere ready to be in the field with Agents like her and Barton.

She nodded. "Fine, but you stay on the Bus, no field work got it?"

Skye sighed but nodded. "I figured. Don't worry, I won't be a problem," she turned around rushing back to her bunk to get ready. 

"Need anything else?" asked Coulson his tone bland but Natasha could see the tension in his posture.

"Just one more thing," she replied slipping on her holster and checking the mags.

"What's that?"

She looked him straight in the eyes. "We're going up against HYDRA, to do that I need someone who knows how to fight them. I need Cap," she turned on her heel and walked out towards the hanger to find Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the errors, if there are any, I edited this on my phone. As it is that little chappy has been sitting in my drafts for quiet a while. I hope you guys enjoyed it! If you did then don't forget to leave a kudos and some comments in the comment section. Will try to update sooner until real life rears it's ugly head again! Thanks for reading!!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey sorry for the long wait as it is this update might cheer you up or scar you for life. A two parter the second part being more dark than the first (you have been warned.) Nothing too squeamish though. Enjoy!

Pepper felt all eyes on her as she cursed Tony's timing and refrained from rolling her eyes; of course Tony would choose the least opportune, not to mention the most awkward, moment to propose. As she looked down at the Billionaire kneeling in front of her waiting for her answer she couldn't help but think of all the other times he had caught her off her guard in the last few years.

His decision to discontinue Stark Industries Weapons Division was one, then there was the revelation of him being Ironman, funnily enough him declaring that fact to the world had not surprised her one bit.

The night he had made her CEO came to mind also, it made much more sense now that she knew exactly what was going on with him at the time. And of course him kissing her after the clichéd rescue from Whiplash's exploding drones was one of the biggest, but not unwelcome, surprises.

Still she couldn't help wondering exactly which turn she had made that took her from being a lowly SI secretary to a point at which _the_ _Tony Stark_ was proposing to her. She had to admit that five years ago she would have blanched and probably gagged at the idea of Tony Stark proposing to her, even after becoming his PA she didn't take a shine to him.

And yet she hadn't run, she hadn't filed the useless sexual harassment lawsuit expected of an irate new PA of Tony's and she also hadn't fallen into bed with him which was more of the norm for applicants to her previous position. Instead, she had tried to make sense of it all; she knew his history, of course, the entire world did but more than that she tried to figure out what it was that made him be the way Tony is.

She had to admit she was pleased with herself when after stomping off in a huff on her first day, she had arrived at work the next day and saw his reaction, he was so shocked that he didn't even bother flirting with her that day. Of course that didn't last long but it was nice to catch him off guard, she didn't really manage to figure much of Tony out but each day she pasted on a polite smile and took on all the outrageous behavior and childish antics.

Slowly though, day after day, her smile became more and more genuine, she started to be amused by his antics and while she disapproved of his womanizing she figured what he did behind closed doors was none of her business.

Until of course he _made_ it her business. The very first time he had called her to get rid of the latest floozy in his bedroom she had almost packed and left. It had been Happy with his tolerant, if slightly naive, opinion of Tony who had managed to talk her out of walking. As it was, she eventually began to enjoy dumping the airheaded women out on their butts while telling them that they weren't as special as they thought they were.

It took a while for her to acknowledge that a little of her satisfaction in doing this task was aimed to appease her slightly jealous heart.

Eventually she began to not understand but accept Tony for who he was, she never believed that he would be the person she wished he was but she was surprised to discover one morning that she didn't all together hate who he was right now.

She began to banter with him whenever he flirted with her, not encouraging him but shooting his attempts down with humour rather than curtness. They developed a successful repertoire that worked for them for four years and then Tony went and got kidnapped.

Oh she was shocked when she heard about it from James, he made sure she was the second person he called when it happened but she wasn't the least bit surprised when she felt her eyes tearing up, she had to excuse herself from the conference she was attending and put everything on hold to prepare a press release.

Well before that, though, she sat in her private bathroom bawling her eyes out, not because she was acknowledging her crush on Tony, or was in some way deeply in love with her boss. No she cried because over the years Tony Stark had become somewhat of her best friend.

Looking after Tony was a full time job and rarely left her any opportunity to socialise, her ambitious nature had tended to scare away potential BFFs early on so the friends she had during her work in Stark Industries were also people that worked there; Happy, JARVIS, a couple of executives and surprisingly Tony. After she managed to become tolerant of Tony being Tony she grew to sort of like him and his weird ways.

Pepper still had no idea how she managed to get through that first day of Tony being missing, probably by keeping busy and not sleeping much because, of course, her nightmares kept her up.

Then he returned, not completely changed, but definitely affected. She wouldn't have known what to do with him anyway if he had completely changed, he might have become a better person but at the core he still was the Tony Stark that, she had to admit, she loved.

Was their road to this point easy? She would be the first to admit that she had doubts, but Tony astounded her once more when he remained faithful and their relationship, while not normal, remained more or less stable.

His proposal was a surprise, she never expected him to actually do it. Her answer though was a no-brainer. So standing there in Tony's penthouse dressed down in casual clothes with little to no fanfare, barefoot Pepper Potts became Tony Starks fiancé. 

* * *

 

He didn't need to put any effort into remaining silent, the darkness enveloped him entirely, he remained completely still as he looked down at his target. _Targets_ to be more precise.

Nearly fifty feet down underneath one of the largest skyscrapers in the city resided the covert base for a number of HYDRA Agents and it just so happened that most of these men and women were present here at the base. Following the events of the week prior most of them were looking to lay low. The were also looking to receive new orders, even with Pierce now removed from the head of HYDRA. As they said cut of one head... 

The man in the shadows had been waiting for a long time and was willing to wait longer but as he looked down at the people milling about down below in the large brightly lit room he knew the time to strike was now.

He reached up with his right hand to touch his left, a soft popping sound, only caught by him because of his enhanced hearing, went off and let go of the beam he had been holding onto.

As he fell the lights all over the walls of the shaft started going out his eyes adjusted easily as he drew his legs up into a crouch and kept falling making no effort to stop himself.

Ten feet to go and the room below him went dark and he reached out and grabbed, with his left hand, a cable stopping his momentum dead. In the dying light of the room the silver glint that shone of his hand went out before anyone noticed and then began the chaos.

Almost immediately phone lights went on and people started panicking, all of them pulled out their side arms and only a few had light attachments that shone frantically around the room trying to locate a threat.

There was no thump of feet hitting the floor when the man above landed but almost immediately one of the gun lights went out, no one noticed.

Two minutes later when the backup generator kicked in the light revealed four people, one woman and three men, standing clustered together and thirty two corpses littered all over the now again brightly lit floor of the meeting room.

In the middle of the room stood the Winter Soldier training two silenced Berettas at them with cold deadly precision his vibranium arm glinting in the light and not a scratch on him.

He stepped forward and the four cringed in fear the men instinctively blocking the woman from view. The soldier stopped two feet from the four and spoke.

"Highest Rank step forward," his voice was raspy with lack of use but nothing he said was unclear.

The four looked at each other with wide eyes literally quivering in their shoes with fear, HYDRAs most dangerous weapon had turned on them.

There was a clutter from across the room as one of the fallen had managed to craw over a corpse to retrieve his gun and was aiming at the soldier. Without lifting his eyes off of the four he holstered one Beretta and snapped a throwing knife off of his belt and flicked his hand, before the man could turn off the safety of the gun the knife was embedded in his left eye, he keeled over and didn't move again and the soldier was already pulling his second Beretta back out.

"Highest Rank Step Forward," he repeated, the finality in his voice was clear.

One of the men looked back at the remaining three then down the recently killed man and stepped forward, he was sweating buckets but he gulped down his anxiety and tried to stand up straight.

"I... I... I am,"he stuttered out. "t-the highest...r-ranked Agent... remaining."

The Soldier looked at him then at the remaining three, he blinked once then fired off three shots and three bodies fell to the ground and only the man who had stepped forward remains alive.

All of the false bravado the man had gathered faded away and he stood quivering in front of the soldier tears streaming down his face mixing with his sweat and there was a suspiciously rancid smell in the air with a telling wet spot down the front of his pants.

The Soldier holstered the Beretta in his vibranium arm and clasped it around the man's neck and said "I have a message for you to deliver."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Don't forget to leave kudos and maybe throw in a comment or two. Your feedback is much appreciated.


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